Professor Scott Galloway appeared at the London Blockchain Conference 2024 to talk about predictions he made in November 2023. As always, he points out some serious problems as well as some reasons to be optimistic.
This article points out how blockchain technology can help with some of the issues Galloway predicts will arise this year and in those to follow.
The Hollywood Ecosystem Struggles
Galloway believes things will get a lot worse for Hollywood. At the heart of this is the “dramatic shift in viewing patterns,” with influencers like Mr. Beast commanding attention online and more offshore content like Squid Games competing for eyeballs. Galloway likens it to a tsunami overwhelming the established players.
Who will the winners be in the future? YouTube, TikTok, and Netflix are obvious ones. TikTok will also increasingly compete in the music business, he predicts, noting that its ability to figure out what you want very quickly is the key to its success. Although Galloway doesn’t point this out in his keynote, this is due to invasive data extraction – the kind blockchain technology can help prevent.
Declining Productivity in Some of the World’s Economies
Despite all this innovation, productivity is decreasing in Europe and the United Kingdom. Why? Galloway links it to lowering corporate tax rates and increasing debts. All the big investments made by the governments were in the 60s and 70s, and we are sitting on those to this day.
If information is the new oil, we’re drowning in it. What we lack is the processing capacity to turn the raw material into useful commodities. AI can help narrow down the thousands of results from search engines and sort through this ocean of information, Galloway says.
Zooming in on the U.K., Galloway says it’s a nation that manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time and time again. He can’t figure out how, despite its great educational institutions and talented workforce, it suffers such anemic growth. Could a peer-to-peer micropayment system help? Galloway doesn’t mention it, but tiny payments at scale coupled with peer-to-peer communications could create a much-needed economic boom.
Tech of the Year: GLP-1
GLP-1 is going to be bigger than AI in the short to medium term, Galloway predicts. Obesity is a pandemic that kills more people than COVID annually, but since so many people make money from it, nobody is attempting to address it.
258 million people in the United States are overweight or obese, and companies like Coca-Cola are making a fortune from that. Galloway believes their share prices will crash as Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs take off.
Already, 70% of people who use it consume less soda, and some have stopped drinking it altogether. There are even secondary effects, like people not biting their nails as much, making Galloway speculate that these drugs could be used to treat problems like gambling addiction or alcoholism.
Of course, getting governments to subsidise these drugs to make them widely affordable requires data to prove its benefits. Again, the blockchain can help, making it easier to prove the links between GLP-1 drugs and better health/social outcomes.
Deepfakes and the Other Threats of AI
Lastly, Galloway predicts that AI deepfakes will play a big part in the upcoming U.S. Presidential election. Fake shootings at polling stations, pictures and videos to make candidates look older and less articulate, and other related problems will arise from generative AI models.
Given the prevalence of loneliness in the West, Galloway predicts that more and more young men will immerse themselves in digital worlds. Some young men will turn to AI girlfriends and will lose all incentive to improve themselves in the real world.
Again, blockchain can help mitigate the worst impacts of AI. Bringing some much-needed accountability to the creators of these models and refining the data used in them can blunt AI’s sharpest edges.
Blockchain as a Tool for Data Management and Economic Growth
While Galloway didn’t touch on blockchain during his keynote speech, passing it over in favor of GLP-1 technology, it can play a role in fixing or helping to mitigate many of the problems he pointed out.
Having firms like ByteDance, which owns TikTok, prove what they do with user data would go a long way to mitigating concerns over the platform’s influence. Likewise, using utility blockchains to prove GLP-1 technology has social benefits and to bring accountability to AI showcases its power as a data management tool.
Blockchains can help fuel economic growth by ushering in a micropayments revolution and by reducing friction in processes and payments. This could transform the UK, Europe, and other areas where economic growth is sluggish. In short, while Galloway didn’t mention blockchain tech specifically, those in the know will have spotted the many ways it can help with the issues he raised.
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