5 Big Ideas that will change tech in 2024, according to experts on LinkedIn

Welcome to the 18th issue of the Tech Wrap-Up Europe newsletter.

Every fortnight, we'll be sharing interesting stories and expert insights from LinkedIn members.?

In this issue, Sam Shead looks at the five big ideas in tech that will shape the world in 2024.

How will the learnings of this year shape the trends of the year ahead? And more importantly, how can individuals and businesses rise to the challenge and set themselves up for success in 2024?

This year brought with it a rapidly changing business landscape for professionals and organisations alike in tech, defined by artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and sustainability.

Generative AI became the hottest tech in town , with billions invested into companies that are building large language models like Google's Bard and Inflection's Pi. Hackers found new ways to access and steal valuable information as the cyberwars intensified. And it was revealed that a group of Silicon Valley billionaires have started to really think about what cities of the future could look like.?

LinkedIn News invited our community of Top Voices and experts in their field to share the Big Ideas they believe will define the year ahead in tech.

This is by no means a complete list, and we invite you to join us! What Big Ideas do you think will emerge in 2024? Share your thoughts in the comments or publish a post , article or video on LinkedIn with #BigIdeas2024 .?

Nations around the world will look to start introducing new laws to regulate AI, but they won't do it alone.

Presidents and prime ministers will lean on experts at AI labs like Google DeepMind , OpenAI (LinkedIn parent company Microsoft is a primary investor), Inflection AI , Anthropic and Cohere as they look to understand the opportunities and the perils associated with AI.?

Expect to see Rishi Sunak speaking at events alongside Demis Hassabis , the polymath who co-founded DeepMind, while Joe Biden will liaise with people like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Inflection AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman .?

Suleyman, who is calling for an IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) for AI wrote that we need to understand, track and see how accurately AI is working before regulating it. "Policymakers cannot act, as they are now, blind," he said.

"The IPCC model has a number of positives for AI," he added. "It is built as an impartial scientific body that doesn’t conduct its own research. It brings together leading expertise from around the world in an independent, authoritative form. While not an actor in its own right, that information has been pivotal in helping catalyse and steer the world’s response to climate change."

The first major coming together between digital ministers, technology executives and AI scientists took place in Bletchley Park – the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War – at the start of November.?Twenty-eight countries including the US, China and the UK agreed to cooperate on AI safety and research.

?? For more on AI, follow Nathan Benaich , Cassidy Bereskin and Matt Clifford .?

This year has been a relatively quiet one for crypto, without that much movement in the price of bitcoin, ethereum and other coins compared to previous years.

But things will be different next year, according to Reto Hofstetter , a professor of marketing and institute director at the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Universit?t Luzern .

Over the summer, Standard Chartered said it expects the price of bitcoin to rise to $120,000 (￡97,000), up significantly from around $35,000 today.?Last week, AB Bernstein managing director Gautam Chhugani said bitcoin could hit $150,000 by 2025.

While it's impossible to know for sure, bitcoin may very well rally in 2024, Hofstetter said, noting that there are a few reasons why.?

So what will drive the price? One notable event is bitcoin is set to go through another "halving" event next year.

"This means that the reward for bitcoin mining is cut in half again, which basically cuts the inflation rate in half," Hofstetter explained. "In times of high inflation, reducing the inflation rate of bitcoin should generate a lot of news and buzz, generating awareness and potentially some hype again. Historically, the halving was followed by significant price increases."

Meanwhile, it looks as though an exchange-traded bitcoin fund could launch in the US, which has been helping to drive up the price of the world's most popular cryptocurrency in recent weeks.?

"Once such an ETF receives the stamp of approval from the US SEC, the perceived risk of investing in bitcoin will be dramatically reduced," Hofstetter said. "Not only should companies and individuals see bitcoin as a safer investment than ever before, they can easily buy it through the ETF without going through the hassle of self-custody."

A growing number of banks have also been jumping on the bitcoin bandwagon including Swissquote in Switzerland, which offers payment cards for bitcoin. "Regional banks are increasingly starting to offer bitcoin to their clients," Hofstetter said.?

Meanwhile, a number of brands are also entering the crypto space despite the market downturn. "A great example for me is the Uptrip app from 汉莎航空 , which allows collecting NFTs (non-fungible tokens) from every flight."

?? For more crypto insights, follow Brian Naughton , Filippo Chisari , and Whitney A. ?

Power stations, air traffic control, motorway networks, hospitals, government websites. These are all key pieces of national infrastructure that could fall victim to a major cyberattack in 2024 if their defences aren't up to scratch.?

Unfortunately, many critical systems, especially in sectors like healthcare and transportation, often rely on outdated tech, making them perfect targets.?

The Ukraine government is under near constant digital attack from Russia, Google researchers wrote in a report in February. But cyber warfare is by no means limited to these two countries.

A few months later in April, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (part of GCHQ) warned of an emerging threat to critical national infrastructure (CNI) "from state-aligned groups".?

The NCSC warned in the alert that some groups have stated an intent to launch "destructive and disruptive attacks" and that CNI organisations should ensure they have taken steps to strengthen their defences.

The rise of AI is likely to lead to more sophisticated cyber attacks in 2024. "AI technology is rapidly advancing, and its implications for cybersecurity are both fascinating and concerning," wrote cyber security specialist Bryn Hawkins . "The integration of AI into hacking techniques opens up a Pandora's box of possibilities, some of which we might not even have considered yet."

?? For more on cybersecurity, follow David Emm and Rik Ferguson .?

It's becoming increasingly difficult for us to tell what's real and what's fake as machines get better and better at generating human-like images, video, audio, text, code and other content.?

The rise of deepfakes is a particular cause for concern. These are pieces of content that are created by generative AI – a branch of AI that uses neural networks to identify the patterns and structures within existing data to generate new and original content.?

"Over the last 18 months, the speed of advances in AI-generated content and deepfakes have been staggering," wrote generative AI expert Henry Ajder , who advises companies like Meta and 安永 on the technology's potential.

"From synthetic voice audio and images to LLMs (large language models) and video generation, we’ve seen a potent combination of flaws being reduced and powerful new functionality becoming more accessible," he said.

Ajder believes that the deepfake disinformation and election threat is no longer hypothetical.?"From disrupting Turkish and Slovakian elections to sowing confusion in Ukraine, Sudan, and the Israel-Hamas conflict, 2023 marks the year deepfakes have started to make a meaningful impact on information warfare," he said.

"Compounding these challenges is how unreliable deepfake detection tools are providing false positive and false negative results, sowing doubt in authentic images and giving false confidence in AI-generated ones. As realism improves and flaws are reduced, these challenges will only become more acute, particularly in rapidly evolving and chaotic environments such as war zones or on the eve of an election."

Content provenance and transparency technologies will become even more crucial next year, Ajder says, noting that he himself is finding it increasingly difficult to spot what's machine made.

"We need a fundamental paradigm shift towards authenticating media at source using secure provenance technologies," he said.

The Content Authenticity Initiative are leading in this work with content credentials – a "nutrition label" for media that provides transparency about how it was captured/generated and subsequently edited, Ajder said.

Nina Schick, founder of Tamang Ventures, wrote on LinkedIn : "If you want to understand power in the 21st century, you have to understand AI."

??For more on deepfakes and AI, follow Melissa Heikkil? .?

Is it time to rethink our urban hubs? Several of the world's biggest cities are struggling to deal with expanding populations. London's Victorian sewers and railways, for example, have been creaking under the strain of 9 million people. Meanwhile, in Delhi, over 25 million people are breathing in heavily polluted air and lengthy traffic jams are common.

To put it bluntly, many cities are in desperate need of an upgrade. A relatively small number of deep pocketed governments and individuals are keen to take on the challenge.

In Saudi Arabia, the government is looking to create a new city on the coast called Neom, which includes a development known as The Line.

"The concept is awe-inspiring," wrote Uma Rudd Chia . "Three underground layers separate pedestrians, infrastructure, and transportation. There’s a marina with boats, a world-class stadium, even a university suspended in the sky."

Engineer Stanislas Rieder wrote on LinkedIn that our traditional circular city models are destined to fail because they do not offer viable, sustainable options for living.

"The Line appears as a counter-model that harmonises with the environment by tackling the problems of pollution, overcrowding, and inequality by offering equal access to healthcare and education to all occupants of The Line," he said. "Living in downtown Manhattan is great but people living in the suburbs face more inequalities due to the lack of accessibility."?

A few thousand miles away, Silicon Valley tech billionaires including Stripe co-founder John Collison and Sequoia Capital 's former chairman Michael Moritz are dreaming up a utopia in northern California.?

In Southern Stockholm, a 250,000 square kilometre neighbourhood that's made almost entirely out of wood is being developed by architecture firms White Arkitekter and Henning Larsen .

Wood City, as it's known, will have 7,000 office spaces and 2,000 homes, and is set to be completed in 2027.

??For more on future cities, follow Stuart Wood . ?

What trends do you believe will shape the year ahead in tech? Share your thoughts in the comments or publish a post, article or video on LinkedIn with #BigIdeas2024 .?

Reported and proofread by: Sam Shead

Communities Segments Lead: Yessi Bello-Perez

Managing Editor: Siobhan Morrin

Special Projects Leads: Michele Pierri, Marina Valero

Regional Lead: Julien Wettstein

International Executive Editor: Sandrine Chauvin