By Dave Lee*

You may have heard that the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year this year was ‘brain rot’. I found this interesting for two reasons. The first is that it is clearly two words. The second is that unlike previous words of the year – like 2013’s ‘selfie’ or last year’s term ‘rizz’ – the word ‘brain rot’ is neither new nor changed from its original meaning in 1854 and was said to be “indicative of a general decline intellectually and spiritually” – and indeed, it is.

Since the choice for Oxford’s word of the year is made by public vote, this leads me to my first prediction in this 2025 technology observation column: The brain rot economy will show signs of weakness as people become more wary of to what the algorithms “serve” them as they endlessly scroll.

In the last year, the barrage of AI content has made looking at Facebook pointless – and eyes look away.

Along the same lines, we can expect more measures against social media and smartphones from governments and local authorities around the world, following Australia’s drastic move to ban under-16 users from the media social networking and the increasing bans of smartphones in US schools.

This momentum is growing, and I expect more sweeping directives to follow – along with more heated debates about whether these bans are justified or effective.

The biggest shock to the social media landscape could come from TikTok ban in the US.

The Jan. 19 deadline to remove TikTok from Google and Apple stores is fast approaching, but before that, on Jan. 10, the Supreme Court will hear arguments from both sides—TikTok and the Justice Department—on with whether this prohibition is constitutional.

Many legal observers see it as unlikely that the court will overturn the lower court’s ruling, which sided with the government on its somewhat vague national security concerns. But in recent days the pendulum has shown signs of swinging. Trump, after weeks of hanging over the question of whether he would “do it or not do it,” sought to suspend the law until he officially takes office.

A delay would allow the court to consider the questions at hand in a more measured time frame. And many leftists and rightists agree on this.

If the steady stream of tech CEOs visiting Mar-a-Lago is any indication of what’s to come, we can expect the Silicon Valley will be more willing to carry out Trump’s orders in 2025 than it was in 2017, when we saw widespread condemnation of him and a promise not to help him implement his policies.

It will take several of the big tech partners to enact Trump’s mass deportation goals, if he does attempt to implement them. Tech companies, which are more parsimonious these days and have tightened the belts on their employees, will jump at the chance – (history books be damned).

The wars in Ukraine and Gaza will continue to provide moral cover to Silicon Valley companies to contract military contracts which they previously avoided for fear of upsetting their employees and customer base.

And at the center of the drawing up of the new technology policy will be the Elon Musk. The world’s richest man will be looking for a strong return on his investment in Trump. Exactly how that will be done remains to be seen, though we’ve already seen him use the power of his social network, X, to bend Congress to his will.

But X’s ownership, and his authority over what is posted and amplified there, will likely make him a lightning rod for the warring factions of right-wing politics. Last week’s bitter dispute over H-1B visas shows how suspicions about Musk’s goals lie just below the surface, and the billionaire’s reluctance to back down from a fight could prove detrimental to his companies.

In 2025, Musk needs to show real progress on his vision for the robotic taxiswhich requires more legislative support than it currently has. Tesla’s stock gains since Trump’s election suggest Wall Street believes the plan is on track, but I think Tesla investors will be bitterly disappointed when its robo-taxi plan turns out to be unfeasible (some argue that this is already obvious).

Investors will also be keeping a close eye on chipmaker Nvidia Corp. CEO Jensen Huang, the so-called godfather of artificial intelligence, will be a man under siege as rivals such as Amazon.com Inc. and Broadcom Inc. are trying to provide alternatives to Nvidia’s AI chips, and geopolitical tensions between the US and China are putting Nvidia on the front lines.

Beijing is also looking for a way to act on trade restrictions announced by the US, and Nvidia is vulnerable to them.

At the same time, Wall Street’s demands for a meaningful return on investment from AI will become more intense.

Capital spending from building data centers and piling up semiconductors will skyrocket, but AI capabilities and revenues will not keep pace with investment. In a political environment more friendly to large M&A, we can wait major consolidation in the AI ​​industry.

Startups will disappear. At the same time, politicians will face the vested interests of big tech companies and the wrath of their constituents as AI companies seek to immediately install data centers in cities that don’t want them.

Reactions to artificial intelligence will also come from news organizations who feel AI companies are stealing their jobs and jeopardizing their futures.

In 2025, newsrooms worldwide will have to face AI as both friend and foe, recognizing its potential to arm journalists with incredibly powerful new tools, while also wondering whether multimillion-dollar deals with OpenAI and others companies will have an impact on their work.

Lawmakers and judges will grapple with the fine print of modernizing copyright law. One phrase we will hear often is “fair use” – which we hope will receive a revised definition.

At the same time, consolidation, or at least cooperation, may be in the air for them streaming companiesas consumers face severe subscription fatigue.

Recently we saw price increases for YouTube TV, Disney+, Max and Paramount+, in addition to password cuts and ad insertion. The streaming market is very crowded, and the big providers will try to bundle their offerings in a way that looks suspiciously like traditional cable TV.

Elsewhere, in her field entertainmentGrand Theft Auto 6 has been 10 years in the making and will walk a cultural war tightrope as it tries to become the most popular entertainment product of all time.

The game became famous as an extremely violent, no-holds-barred, over-the-top depiction of the dirty criminal underworld. In the decade since its previous sequel, sensibilities have changed, though something tells me developer Rockstar Games will prefer the offensive. All this publicity is good publicity, and it’s sure to spark heated debate.

*Dave Lee is a US technology columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. Previously, he was a correspondent for the Financial Times and BBC News.