Our Predictions for 2026

Happy New Year!  What do you think 2026 will bring?

This is the day we launch our annual contest for who can make the best prediction.  This year we will raise the stakes:  You will be competing against AI.

First, here are the terms of the contest:

The custom on this blog on New Year’s Day is for readers to predict what they think will happen over the course of the year ahead. Then, once the year is over, on or around the next New Year’s Eve, we will revisit those predictions and see who made the best one. . . .

The predictions can be weighty or light, serious or whimsical. Winning predictions will likely be highly specific. They tend to seem highly unlikely at the time they are made, but then, to our surprise, they happen anyway. The winning prediction makes us think, “How could anyone possibly know THAT was going to happen?”

The most noteworthy such prediction was made by Bernankeisglutenfree, who predicted that in 2020 a disease originating in Asia would create havoc around the world.  For predicting COVID, we named the prize after him: the Gluten Free Award, which exists only virtually and in our minds, having no monetary value whatsoever.

Give your predictions in the comments to this post.  The contest closes on January 15.

These are free posts, so you do not need to be a subscriber to make a prediction or see the results next year.

Also,  these are predictions, not prophecies that claim supernatural authority.  The Deuteronomy 18:21-22 principle will not be enforced.

I’ll post my predictions in the comments like everyone else.  This year we will add a wrinkle. In the 2024 contest, skyorrichegg had the bright idea of asking AI its predictions for the year.  He put the parameters in ChatGPT and asked it for 15 predictions.  Among the fairly accurate predictions, most of which were about technology and were fairly obvious, AI predicted the following:

1. A new trend emerges where people claim to communicate with plants on a deep emotional level.

2. A tech company releases a smartphone app claiming to predict users’ needs before they are aware of them.

3. Insect protein becomes very common and popular. High-end gourmet restaurants add menu items prominently featuring insect protein with culinary experts raving about the unique flavors and textures offered by insect cuisine.

Those did not happen, to put it mildly.  At the time, AI was fairly new and it has supposedly gotten better.  So I just now entered the above rules into today’s version of ChatGPT and asked for five predictions.  Here they are:

• A major Hollywood studio will release a theatrically distributed feature film whose screenplay credit is formally listed as “Human author with AI assistance,” and the Writers Guild will publicly accept that phrasing without protest.
  Not a loophole, not a scandal—an explicit, negotiated credit that becomes a precedent.

• A U.S. Supreme Court opinion in 2026 will contain a footnote explicitly addressing generative AI hallucinations and warning lower courts not to rely on AI-generated legal summaries without verification.
  The footnote will be widely quoted and instantly canonical in law reviews.

• A prominent evangelical or mainline Protestant denomination will issue an official pastoral statement discouraging congregants from forming “emotionally significant relationships” with AI companions.
  The document will not mention sex at all—and will therefore be mocked for exactly that reason.

• A previously obscure regional airline will experience a viral surge after a single passenger’s offhand complaint on social media accidentally reveals an unusually generous refund policy.
  The airline will change the policy within weeks, but not before reporters document dozens of people exploiting it.

• A professional sports game (NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL) will be paused mid-play because an AI-operated officiating or analytics system produces a visibly absurd real-time ruling that no human official can immediately explain.
  The clip will be replayed endlessly, and the phrase “we’re waiting on the algorithm” will briefly become a cultural punchline.

OK.  Rather AI-heavy, but that’s to be expected.  Surely you can do better than that!  For the sake of humanity, you must do better than that!

Will AI make more accurate predictions than human beings?  Can actual intelligence defeat artificial intelligence?  Are machines smarter than people?  We will find out.  It is  up to you to represent the human race.  This may be our last chance.

Illustration:  Robot and Human Collaborate by Circe Denyer [AI Collaboration] via PublicDomainPictures, Public Domain.