Prediction 2018 – 16

December 16, 2017

From Matthew Lavy

I see 2018 largely as a year of continuity:
blockchain will continue to buzz as ever more exotic use cases promise to
revolutionise the world (or at least attract generous funding); GDPR readiness
and implementation activities will continue at an ever more frenzied pace as
the need to do at least something will seep into the consciousness of
even those for whom the phrase ‘Article 29 Working Party’ is assumed to be a
StarTrek reference; applications of AI will become more and more impressive and
pervasive (and more and more applications of good old-fashioned statistics will
be marketed as AI); as efforts to thwart cyber-attacks continue to be only
partially successful, CISOs will increasingly be recognised as the Oracles that
they were always born to be; and as the sun sets at the year end, we will be just
that little bit closer to 19th January 2038, when 32-bit clocks will
herald the long-awaited return to 1970.

Matthew Lavy is a barrister at 4 Pump Court and a SCL Trustee.