When you think of the biggest tech stories of the year, you probably think of something like Elon Musk buying Twitter, former crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX filing for bankruptcy, all the people who lost their life savings when UST imploded, or the tens of thousands of tech workers who got laid off. It was not the most upbeat year we’ve ever had in the tech world. And yet, from progress in climate tech, to breakthroughs in AI technology, to the most awe-inspiring images of outer space we could dream of, there’s a lot to be excited about as we close out 2022.
Climate tech bolstered by the Inflation Reduction Act
After years of inaction, Congress finally took a step toward addressing climate change with a surprise — and surprisingly large — bill that funds everything from green hydrogen to cold-weather heat pumps. The Inflation Reduction Act seemed destined for failure, like every climate bill before it, until it suddenly wasn’t. Senator Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) intransigence looked like it was a calculated effort to kill the bill, but in reality, it may just have been an attempt to guarantee American competitiveness in some of the more consequential industries of the 21st century. The law provides $369 billion toward a variety of climate initiatives, and while it’s not nearly enough to address the scope of the problem, it’s far better than nothing. And if investor sentiment is anything to go by, it may be the lure needed to get them rushing into climate tech.
Manchin’s ultimatum may turn the US into a battery powerhouse
Generative AI comes into its own
Generative AI has its problems, to be sure. But it also has undeniably positive disruptive potential. As generative AI came to the fore this year, bolstered by emerging AI techniques, we got a glimpse of the labor it can save across the art (see: Stable Diffusion, DALL-E 2), programming (GitHub Copilot) and writing world (GPT-3, ChatGPT). Art-generating AI can eliminate mundane work like sketching backgrounds for portrait photos, while code-generating AI can reduce the amount of repetitive coding a programmer has to finish. The jury’s out on whether it’s a net good, but if social media’s anything to go by, generative AI is already supercharging the workflows of the white collar workforce.