Q&A: UK expert predicts tech trends in 2024
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 2, 2024) — The year 2023 brought unwavering technological advancements in health care, education and more. As we kick off a new year, UKNow asked a University of Kentucky expert to discuss upcoming technology trends that we might see in 2024.
Adam Recktenwald is UK's Information Technology Services associate chief information officer and enterprise chief technology officer.
UKNow: What new tech trends should we expect to see students using around campus in 2024?
Recktenwald: Just to cherry pick a couple — AI and VR. If AI (artificial intelligence) was big last year, it's going to be huge this year! AI will become a verb — it will quickly go from 'Wow, I didn't know AI could do that...' to 'I'll just AI that'. VR (virtual reality) has been slower to gain steam but that is likely to change with the new Apple Vision product and Meta’s metaverse tech.
UKNow: What technology from the past do you see becoming popular in 2024?
Recktenwald: Great question! I love that point-and-shoot digital cameras and Polaroids have made a comeback. I hope we'll see the better quality but still retro cousins — small 'street photography' cameras — also come back. A 10-15-year-old FujiFilm X series camera is a work of art — great to hold and makes wonderful pictures. The other tech that I haven't seen make a return is the Nintendo Gameboy... there's still no better way to play Tetris — after class!
UKNow: What predictions do you have for AI progression in 2024?
Recktenwald: I think we'll see new ways that AI may take on decision making, not just providing information.
Some of those decisions might be small. For instance, instead of trying to figure out where to eat with friends, AI might 'decide' for you, reserve seats and place everyone's favorite orders.
We'll want to hear and participate in a lot of discussion on the ethics, concerns and pitfalls of AI this year, too. When do we rely on AI versus a human? How does a specific AI tool 'work'? How was the data obtained that 'taught' this AI what it knows? These are real and important conversations to have. What do you think? I'd love to hear what students are excited about or concerned about regarding AI.
UKNow: What other tech trends do you predict for 2024?
Recktenwald: Another tech trend that we'll see take more shape in '24 is virtual reality. Gaming has a tendency to be ahead of the curve with several tech trends and VR games have been around for years now. But it hasn't been until recently that we've seen really interesting non-game use cases. Meta and Apple's focus has been more with improving human connection in a virtual way — think if mixing real-life and social media. Apple, Microsoft and others are imaging using VR to do collaborative work together. VR is definitely a trend to watch.
UKNow: What influences tech trends every year?
Recktenwald: There are lots of things that affect these trends but both AI and VR are products of huge leaps in computing power of the last several years. For instance, just GPUs — Graphics Processing Units — alone have had tremendous power advances in the last several years, over 3x every other year (Huang's Law for us nerds)! If your car's range increased by 3x every other year, you'd be able to drive over 2,700 miles in the time it takes you to graduate (give or take). GPUs were really developed for and first used by, yep, games. They are why games look so much better on a new Xbox or PS5 vs an old-school Nintendo or Atari (also, Ataris rock). Several GPUs can be connected together to create big 'clusters' for high power AI (and other) computing heavy needs. It takes a serious amount of computing power for ChatGPT to generate a decent response. GPUs also provide the graphics power behind great VR experiences. So yeah, GPUs are pretty cool.
UKNow: How will new tech trends affect the workflow? Will it be easier? Harder?
Recktenwald: I don’t think work will become easier or harder necessarily, but I think it will change. Just like work changed when tools like Zoom and Teams were introduced, so will it with AI, VR and similar tools.
UKNow: How do you predict AI will be implemented into a health care setting in 2024?
Recktenwald: AI could be a powerful tool to help doctors diagnose and treat patients. It could provide a 'first look' at an X-ray or blood work and make suggestions for a provider's review. Folks have always needed to learn new skills in order to stay competitive — state-of-the-art medical devices used to be a stethoscope, a microscope and a tiny flashlight. Now we have devices that a person can wear to measure vitals in real-time, all the time and administer medicine in the middle of the night. Most of those devices are managed and maintained by skilled nurses — their work had to adapt to new technologies. As I mentioned earlier, we'll want to hear and participate in a lot of discussion on the ethics, concerns and pitfalls of AI this year, too.
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