By 
by Paul Moore
I am not a great believer in astrology. Except of course when it is telling me things which I think might apply to me or even better compliment me.
Unfortunately if I access Instagram, which I do on occasion for work purposes (and of course to look at videos of cats and dogs), there will inevitably be a horoscope of some kind that pops up, especially when a New Year is imminent.
Such was the case a few days ago and I was confronted with an analysis of Aquarius – of which I am one – outlining its strengths and weaknesses and indicating its special powers.
It seems that we Aquarians are ‘weird’ and that people stop performing normally when around us. We are deeply loyal in, again, the ‘weirdest’ way, we exhibit ‘cool’ detachment and our greatest superpower is that we ‘see the future before it happens’.
Apparently our ideas seem crazy until everyone else catches up and then realises we were right all along. As someone who supposedly works in trying to build the future for education and the creative industries this description held no little appeal.
After gloating for some time it occurred to me, however, that one might have to actually make some crazy idea predictions if one is to live up to the hype. With that in mind here we go.
The most obvious elephant in the room which needs to be addressed is artificial intelligence, the latest media bogeyman.
In my job I have been encouraged to read all I can find about AI and its future. From this, I have made a number of predictions. Firstly, what we see as AI now and what it will become are two entirely different things.
Given the pace of change, this might seem obvious but what I mean is that there is at the moment a kind of dot.com bubble around AI which makes it impossible to predict anything with confidence and which sees the AI landscape rife with cowboy medicine salesmen exploiting our fears to sell product which is out-of-date before it hits your portfolio.
This bubble will burst late 2026, early 2027 so best to stay out of the water until the sharks have gone. In the meantime we should all be developing AI literacy to allow us to negotiate this space and I predict that this will become a central feature of the school curriculum this year.
One area where AI has been having a positive impact is in the field of disability and access. This aligns with a growing awareness that not creating access for all is a double burden on the economy since support has to be given to those excluded and the skills they can develop are not being fully cashed in.
The college in Omagh is recognised as a place where this deficit is being confronted (see the Walled Garden project they developed in Enniskillen) and I predict that this is the year when the conversation about access shifts from asking for inclusion to demanding that those with challenges are no longer actively excluded. This simple shift in emphasis will have politicians falling over each other to introduce inclusive policies.
Speaking of politics and policies the most important question for many is what will Trump do next? Given that the MAGA machine appears to be running out of fuel I have a feeling that Trump might decide this is the year he will resign.
This move would not be because he would feel he has failed in any way but since he cannot run again for president it would allow Vance to take over and hence create continuity for the reactionary political agenda we have witnessed over the last three years.
I truly hope I am wrong in this but, as Meat Loaf says, ‘two out of three ain’t bad’…
