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…his year. >> Yeah. I mean, I think if I've changed my view on AGI at all in the past year, it's that it will not be kind of a single point in time. There will not be like one day when everyone kind of agrees like, oh, it's here. Um, I think it will be a steady progression of things that feel like AGI for some people and not for others. And that makes me sad because I was planning to take AGI day off. I thought if we get there, I'm going to the beach, but now I guess I can't do that anymore. >> Nope. >> All right. So, those were our predictions for 2025. Casey, what is your high confidence prediction for 2026? >> Oh, man. Well, you know, Kevin, after going three for three this year, I've never felt more pressure on me than I do right now on the Hardfork podcast, but I but I think I have one thing that I'm going to feel confident about with high confidence in 2026, and it's this. I think that 16 plus becomes the new norm for social media accounts worldwide. Recently on the show, we talked about the fact that Australia had just said that you must be 16 to have an account on uh 10 different apps, including YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat, and more. I think you're just going to see more and more countries do this. Uh Malaysia and Norway are looking into it as we discussed last week, and I would bet that by the end of 2026, we've seen at least five other democracies uh introduce similar rules. This thing is just sweeping the nation. Um, and uh, I think it makes a lot of sense and we're just going to get a really interesting experiment into what happens once you kick kids off these big mainstream apps. >> I like that. Do you think that what would the sort of resolution criteria for this would be? Would it be five countries, 10 countries? >> Let's say five more countries enact under 16 bans of roughly the same shape as the Australia ban. >> Wow. Okay. So, that will uh, go into our predictions for next year. We are, as always, going to put these up on Manifold, the prediction market site where you can bet play money on whether they'll happen or not. Basically, just have some fun with uh figuring out whether you agree with us or not. >> And kids, this prediction market is not in Roblox yet, but stay tuned. >> Yes. Okay. I like that prediction. I uh I agree that it is likelier to happen than not. >> Kevin, give me a high confidence prediction for 2026. My high confidence prediction for 2026 is that an AI company will solve one of the Millennium Prize problem. >> Tell us about the Millennium Prize problems. >> So the Millennium Prize problems are a set of difficult and important open problems in mathematics. This so-called Millennium Prize was started in the year 2000 by the Clay Mathematics Institute. Um, and they basically said, "Here are seven of the hardest problems that we don't have solutions for. If you solve one of them, you get a million-dollar prize." >> Hey, can you give me a little flavor of this because I did get a B in high school trigonometry. >> Yeah. So, you're probably not a candidate for solving one of the Millennium Prize GPT access. >> But these are things like the Reman hypothesis, if you've heard of that. Uh, gh school trigonometry. >> Yeah. So, you're probably not a candidate for solving one of the Millennium Prize GPT access. >> But these are things like the Reman hypothesis, if you've heard of that. Uh, the Navier Stokes uh equations that describe the motion of fluids. The Yang Mills describe the motion of fluids. Dramatic, beautiful, inspiring. >> The Birch and Swton Dire conjecture. Have you solved that one? >> No. Um, I actually don't even have a conjecture about what it's about. So, I'm really kind of at square one there. So, basically, these are problems that are not just sort of hard computationally. They some of them require kind of entire branches of mathematics to be developed in order to even start solving them. And these have been seen for years as kind of the ultimate prizes uh for mathematicians and others in the hard sciences. And AI companies in particular have been watching these problems very closely to figure out, hey, could we throw one of our models at one of these and come out with a solution. They don't really care about the million- dollar prize, a million dollars, you know, buy you snacks in the micro kitchen. Um but >> it gets you one meeting with their top AI researcher. >> Right. Right. But it's more the the principle of the thing, the idea of of sort of cracking open some of the hardest uh unsolved problems in mathematics that is very appealing to them. There were some reports earlier this year that DeepMind was working on one of these problems in particular, the Navier Stokes equations. And so my prediction is that in 2026, one of these problems will be officially proven and solved. >> All right, there it is. Uh, I don't know how to think about the likelihood that that comes true, but I see no reason why it couldn't come true. >> Yeah. Well, I think if if one of the AI companies doesn't do it, you should commit to doing it. >> You know what? I'm I have a lot of time open in the back half of next year, so I might might take a crack at it. All right, let's talk about our medium confidence predictions for next year. Kevin, here is mine. I believe that in 2026 we are going to see a group of Democrats win big in the midterms by leaning into anti-AI sentiment. >> Oo, I like this one. >> Yeah. So, we are already seeing some sort of stirrings of anti- AI uh feeling coalescing into political action. In recent days, Senator Bernie Sanders called on a moratorum on the construction of new data centers to try to give us more time to figure out how to regulate AI. So, to me, that was kind of a bellweather announcement. We've also seen a lot of sort of nimi behavior in counties where data centers are being constructed. People are saying, I don't want you to build this here. I'm worried about the environmental impact and also I don't want you to take my job and so don't build this thing here. And if we've learned one thing uh from American politics in the past 20 years, it's that nimi movements are extraordinarily powerful. You want to get somebody to the polls, make them think that their vote will result in something not being built and it will work. You know what I mean? >> Exactly. >> And so you have a bunch of Democrats who t to get somebody to the polls, make them think that their vote will result in something not being built and it will work. You know what I mean? >> Exactly. >> And so you have a bunch of Democrats who are still kind of casting around looking for a message. And I think you have the president giving them a gift because he is still very much in league with the Andre Horowitz wing of the Republican party which is all gas no breaks when it comes to AI development. And Trump is basically giving them free reign to say you write the policies that you want in including backing a moratorum on all state level AI legislation. Yeah, it does kind of feel like AI is polarizing in a very predictable way. you know, Republicans think it's good, Democrats think it's bad. I think that's why this is a reasonable prediction. I don't know if it's going to happen in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election, but I agree that this will become a very salient issue for voters in one of those two elections. >> Yeah. And I mean, you say that Republicans think AI is good, but I would say Republicans do not necessarily think data center in my backyard is good and they do not necessarily think AI takes my job is good, right? So, like that is the actual political opportunity here and I just think you're going to see some Democrats use it. And by the way, I also think you're going to see some Republicans sees it. And like if you want a sort of secondary prediction here is that you do see some sort of schism next year within the Republican party over this very issue. >> And what would a resolution criteria for this be? What would convince you that in 2026 a group of Democrats had won uh or or found political purchase with this argument? Let's say you see like three uh Democrats flip seats next year uh who espouse anti-AI sentiment in their campaigns. >> I like that. My medium confidence prediction for 2026 is that a primarily AI generated work will be nominated for a major entertainment award. Now what do I mean by this? I mean basically the big four the Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars and the Tony's. >> I think this is nano bananas. Why do you think this is true? >> So here's my case for this. Number one, we we have talked about on the show this year that AI slop among many people is very popular. Right? In the past few months, at least six AI or AI assisted artists have debuted on the Billboard charts. Um we also know that AI video is starting to get quite good. Um filmmakers like Darren Areronowski uh have been experimenting with AI to do storytelling and visual effects in their films. Um we now have these sort of professionalgrade tools for Hollywood studios and filmmakers who are increasingly interested in using them. Some filmmakers obviously are not, but they are not going to be the ones who are proving this prediction true. Um, and we've also seen some willingness on the part of the sort of groups that decide these awards to kind of allow AI to get its foot in the door. In fact, earlier this year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which u votes on the Oscar winners, uh, decided that the use of AI in films would neither…

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