Forbes’s AI writers predicted that Waymo (self-driving car pictured) and Cruise, would go public. They were wrong.

2021 Predictions by Forbes Magazine Columnist Were a Bit Less Than Accurate

Rob Toews and his team made a lot of predictions last year at forbes.com. Toews has an article this week in the same format that shows just how unpredictable AI still is in this world. Out of nine predictions about AI that he and his team put forward last year, only a few of them turned out to be correct. Several were way off.

We have included a few here for your consideration. The first is quite surprising. It was:

Prediction 1: Both Waymo and Cruise will debut on the public markets.
Outcome: Wrong

Although both Waymo and Crusie were very well-financed by private companies their return was less than hoped for. Now they predict the two autonomous companies will have to find public funding.

As of the beginning of this year, no autonomous vehicle company had ever gone public. 2021 is the year that all changed.

TuSimple, Embark, and Aurora have all debuted on public markets this year. Argo is deep in preparations to go public. Plus.ai and Pony.ai both announced SPAC deals this year (though Pony.ai has since shelved its plans). Credible rumors are swirling about upcoming public market debuts for other autonomous players.

Again, the Toews team expects Waymo and Cruise to need public trading this year to actually launch their vehicles.

Prediction 2: A political deepfake will go mainstream in the U.S., fueling widespread confusion and misinformation.
Outcome: Wrong

After seeing the Tom Cruise videos or even the pornographic videos with celebrity faces placed in them, many people, including Toew’s team thought deepfakes would be a real problem. And many thought deepfakes would become a political tool. So far in 2021, it hasn’t. With the 2022 elections being so unpredictable, a deepfake may yet make its way onto the headlines.

Prediction 6: The U.S. federal government will make AI a true policy priority for the first time.
Outcome: Right

The Biden Administration has made AI a much bigger priority with its funding and its policy movements.

At the beginning of the year, Congress passed legislation to promote and coordinate AI research. Numerous additional AI-related bills have been introduced in both chambers of Congress this year. A dedicated White House group has been established to oversee the nation’s overall approach to AI. The U.S. military has gone into overdrive in its AI investments. In October, the Biden administration called for an “AI Bill Of Rights” for the American people. The list goes on.

The other predictions that were right or wrong will surprise you as much as they did us. From corporate buyouts that never took place to correctly predicting the trillion parameter NLP that Google finally achieved, the article shows forbes.com takes its licks where it was wrong and waves its flag where they were right.

If you’d like to read another story about AI predictions, Nvidia’s blogger Cliff Edwards interviewed numerous experts for their takes on what will come in 2022.

read more at forbes.com