What trends will 2023 bring for the tech world?

• Legislative pressure set to rise in drive to protect users
• Twitter takeover intensifies debate on content moderation
• Crypto collapse seen accelerating regulatory moves

It has been a tumultuous year in the world of technology: Elon Musk took over Twitter, crypto crashed, and new laws sought to rein in Big Tech companies and control online content.

It was also the year that artificial intelligence-generated art went mainstream, even controversially winning a prize in a competition at the Colorado State Fair.

So what does 2023 hold in store, and how will tech users be affected around the world? We asked experts from the United States to India for their predictions.

Here they are:

What lies ahead for Big Tech?

Jesse Lehrich, co-founder of Accountable Tech, a nonprofit:

"On the one hand, we've seen truly monumental progress over the last year; the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Marketing Act (DMA) will fundamentally rewrite the global rules for digital governance and markets, and California's Age-Appropriate Design Code is similarly consequential for young people online.

"The DSA and DMA are gamechanging for Big Tech in particular – for the first time, they will face genuine constraints on their monopoly abuses and real oversight and accountability for driving systemic societal harms. I think the era of impunity and infallibility for Big Tech is finally coming to an end, and more change is on the horizon."

Jathan Sadowski, Emerging Technologies Research Lab, Monash University:

"Next year we should expect much more of the same. Financially, the tech sector is likely to continue dealing with the current economic slump.

"The approach to regulation taken by the White House's recent AI Bill of Rights - which is a non-enforceable set of suggestions for business practices - does not inspire hope that American policymakers will take a proactive stance to ensure social protections and hold Big Tech accountable. We might see individual companies or executives punished for especially egregious and obvious infractions. But in terms of confronting and changing broader systemic problems in Big Tech, that duty still largely falls on the court of public opinion."

How will social media look in 2023?

Evan Greer, director, Fight for the Future, a nonprofit advocacy group:

"Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter should be a wakeup call: we will never have free speech, human rights, or a real 'digital public square' on platforms owned and controlled by billionaires. We need to move past squabbling over what the rules should be on the few platforms we have, and start fighting for policies that allow us to build truly democratised digital infrastructure, with community driven governance and tools for marginalised users to protect ourselves.

"The most obvious regulatory action that moves us in that direction would be for U.S. Congress to pass the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) and the Open App Markets Act (OAMA.) These bills are crucial to level the playing field and allow alternatives to Big Tech to compete and flourish."

Nashilongo Gervasius, independent digital rights consultant in Namibia:

"It is very clear that different markets are treated differently when it comes to social media, and we see this through the application of their content moderation policies, for instance. Misinformation is another aspect that is not a high priority in markets such as Africa due to low resources allocated by Big Tech in a majority of African languages. It looks like social media will continue to remain largely unregulated in Africa, pushing certain Western-centric views while downplaying local views."

Is crypto mania over?

Stephen Diehl, author of 'Popping the Crypto Bubble':

"Crypto will absolutely go the way of other historical speculative manias. With the looming threat of regulation in the United States, the market is likely to retreat into irrelevance as the number of "greater fools" willing to play this losing game dries up. The threats from the Securities Exchange Commission are genuine and increasingly imminent, given the unprecedented level of financial fraud seen this year. There will likely be an ever-increasing set of failures as the FTX implosion ripples through the market."

Shivam Thakral, chief executive, Indian exchange BuyUcoin:

"The crypto market will overcome the collapse of crypto giants like FTX and move towards a more mature phase with wiser investors and healthy regulations.

We need to create a global consensus around the regulatory framework for digital assets. We cannot have isolated policies for digital assets due to their global nature; we need to work towards creating a transparent ecosystem where investors are made aware of the risks involved."

What lies ahead for AI?

Andrew Strait, associate director, Ada Lovelace Institute, an independent research institute:

"Meaningful applications of general purpose AI systems (GPAI) ... will become clearer as their practical and commercially viable use cases become more apparent. The risks of these GPAI systems for people and society, such as biased data, incorrect answers and harmful content will persist and need urgent regulatory attention. Policymakers will seek to answer the question of who is liable when an AI system causes harm - already underway in the EU - and an emerging ecosystem of algorithmic auditing standards and practices will begin to flourish."

Catherine Breslin, machine learning scientist, United Kingdom:

"Generative AI has made leaps and bounds in quality over the past couple of years and is now starting to find uses. With that growth comes an increasing focus on how large models are trained. Questions around web scraping and data copyright don't have clear answers. There's been pushback from some artists whose images are used to train large models, and the first lawsuit has been filed in the context of a generative model that outputs computer code. The outcome of this case will have repercussions for all generative AI."

(Reporting by Avi Asher-Schapiro in Los Angles, Adam Smith in London and Rina Chandran in Bangkok; Additional reporting by Kim Harrisberg; Editing by Helen Popper)