I wonder if the ChatGPT developer may face similar workforce cuts early next year. This speculation inspired me to come up with a whole set of predictions about what may happen in the coming year. Here’s a look at six ideas that match the actual intelligence of WIRED colleagues.
data center disinformation
Communities around the world are struggling to build data centers. In the US, many activists are organizing on social media, using tools such as Facebook groups. The Chinese and Russian governments continue to use social media to spread misinformation masquerading as real news and authentic opinions. Slowing data center growth in the US will be a boon for China and Russia, both of which are trying to overtake the US in industrial and military AI capabilities.
Austin Wang, a researcher at the nonprofit think tank RAND who has studied China-controlled propaganda farms, says there is no sign of related activity right now. “Many newly established anti-data-center pages so far appear to be controlled by actual US citizens,” Wang says.
But as anti-data-center fervor grows, China and Russia may try to organize at the grassroots level. And the task has become even easier thanks to AI, which can instantly generate photos and videos to excite people on social media.
Robots everywhere
In 2026, discussions about AI-powered robots are likely to take place at tech conferences ranging from consumer electronics shows to Amazon’s hardware events. Google and other big tech companies have spent years training robots to handle household tasks through repeated practice. But now a new round of publicity is going on. AI models used in services like ChatGPT and Gemini are being integrated into robots in the hope that they will handle tasks like folding clothes with less training and more accuracy.
Last September, Google released a video of a robot sorting trash, compost, and recycling in response to a user’s voice commands. When Google executives take the stage at the company’s next I/O conference, I expect them to inspire a robot to perform tasks like, for example, putting a pizza in an oven it’s never seen before and retrieving a half-full Diet Coke from the back of a crowded fridge while it’s cooking.
Barack Turowski, the recently departed chief AI officer of General Motors and former leader of Google’s AI division, says advances in robot capabilities are possible because large language models can understand dishwasher manuals, learn to operate a dishwasher by watching a video, and understand how to hold a specific part by understanding a drawing. “The next frontier for large language models is the physical world,” he says.
<a href