Someone needs to write these Fantasy Top Ten Tech lists

As end of year Top Ten lists start springing up like mushrooms, I thought I'd get a little meta and write about some of the lists no-one's writing, but should.

Video generated using OpenAI’s SORA, which seemed appropriate at the end of an AI-dominated year!

I confess — I’m as guilty as the next person of constructing my fair share of end-of-year “top ten” lists in the past. There’s a near-irresistible temptation at this time of the year for writers to show off their expertise and insight — especially if they write about tech and the future.

This year though, I though I’d do something different.¹

Rather than write about what went down down in 2024 and what I think will transpire in 2025, I thought I’d compile a Fantasy Top Ten list — a top ten list of top ten lists that no-one’s writing, but which someone probably should.

Of course I am, once again, guilty of writing yet another Top Ten list. But this time it’s also an open invitation for others to fill in the gaps.²

So without further ado, and in no particular order, here’s my Fantasy Top Ten List of Top Ten Lists to usher in 2025:

Fantasy Top Ten List of Top Ten Lists

1. Top ten books everyone should read in 2025 that do not appear on any list with “Musk”, “Bezos”, “Altman” or “Gates” in it.³

2. Top ten ways that a pencil and paper will continue to be more transformative than the latest technologies in 2025.⁴

3. Top ten ways that AI will not change our lives in 2025.⁵

4. Top ten least-read books of 2024 that could change the world, if only someone would take the time to actually read them.⁶

5. Top ten technological advances that will bring you joy in 2025.⁷

6. Top ten anticipated technological wow-moments for 2025 that will be utterly ignored.⁸

7. Top ten trivial tech breakthroughs in 2025 that will be heralded as changing everything.⁹

8. Top ten weirdest moments in science and technology predicted for 2025.¹⁰

9. Top ten dumbest tech decisions anticipated for 2025.¹¹

10. Top ten ways science and technology will transform how we think about what it means to be human in 2025.¹²

If you end up writing about one of these, please do post a link in the comments — or even just put the list there.

And with that, here’s to a 2025 that’s threaded through with meaning, joy and peace — no matter what it throws at you.

1. In full disclosure, we do have a 24/25 retrospective/prospective episode of Modem Futura coming out on December 31 that is almost — but not quite — a top ten list. The habit dies hard!

2. I did check to see whether any of these lists currently exist. I couldn’t find any, but I may have missed something. Apologies if I did — and if you find one that’s already been written about, please do share the link in the comments.

3. OK so this gets personal, but I’m far more interested in the books that people who aren’t well know but who are, nevertheless, interesting thinkers, are reading and recommending.

4. This is one of those tongue in cheek tests I use to assess hyped up educational tech. But it also applies elsewhere — and it gets to the question of whether we’re using tech to solve problems that are unsolvable in other ways, or whether we’re simply trying to manufacture problems that we claim emerging technologies can solve — thus retroactively justifying their development and use.

5. I could, of course, have had a whole list just dedicated to AI. And truth be told, advances in AI are transforming the world — especially given what we’ve seen emerging this past year. But it’s always good to stay grounded in what a transformative technology is not doing — at least not just yet.

6. As most authors know, there’s a massive chasm between which books are worth reading, and which books become best sellers. If only there was a way to close the gap …

7. The concept of joy is much under-appreciated in how we think about the roles and impacts of technology in our lives — as a result many advances have a nasty habit of sucking the joy out of what we do without us realizing it!

8. I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that most people only have a fleeting idea of just how amazing many of the current discoveries and advanced in science and technology are, and are prone to forgetting any “wow” moments pretty fast as everyday life takes over. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as a survival instinct, and it’s part of what makes us human. But it does mean that people as a whole tend to be incredibly immune to knowledge and insights that you’d think would change pretty much everything.

9. Hyperbole is the primary currency in an attention economy. What else can I say.

10. Of course we can’t predict the future. But we’re definitely going through a “weird science and tech” phase in human history — which is exhilarating. It’s going to be interesting to see whether 2025 out-weirds 2024 here.

11. My prediction is that it’s going to be hard to keep this list to just ten dumbest tech decisions anticipated for 2025 — especially as a bunch of tech bros forget everything they ever knew about the Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to governance and policy.

12. Whether advanced technologies are fundamentally changing our understanding of what it means to be human is still open to debate. But as we go further down the path toward novel forms of AI, highly capable humanoid robots, transformative brain computer interfaces, new understandings of consciousness, the ability to manipulate and engineer biology in ways that were inconceivable a few years ago, and a whole lot more, it’s getting harder to hold on to what we’ve thought of as the bedrock of being human as if it’s an immutable truth.