2024 seems like a pivotal year when a number of long-term trends are converging. It might be useful to predict whether the world will be fundamentally changed when we wake up on January 1, 2025.

These top ten events are all intended to be world changing occurrences that would make everyday life completely different for most people - either miraculously or hellishly.

This market will resolve to YES immediately if any of the events listed occurs. If none of them occur before December 31, 2024 at 11:59:59pm EST, the market will resolve to NO. The standard for all events is "clear and convincing evidence." The numbers are provided to allow people to reference them in the comments but are not relevant for market resolution.

The odds of the world being unrecognizable next year higher might be much higher than one might expect. Let's find out.

1 - CATATROPHIC DISASTER

A natural, AI, or human disaster greater than World War II occurs (killing at least 75 million people.) There is a single initial cause that occurs in 2024 - not a sum of many independent events of the same type - and all of the people die during 2024.

2 - WEAK AGI ACHIEVED

The Metaculus market defining "weak artificial general intelligence" resolves to YES with a date in 2024, and the "weak AGI" system stuns the world by computing at least one monumental task that no human has ever accomplished - such as proving that P==NP.

3 - RUNAWAY CLIMATE EMERGENCY

NASA reports that the average temperature in 2024 is 1 degree Celsius higher than the average recorded in any prior individual year.

4 - NUCLEAR WAR

A nuclear weapon is detonated in an offensive or defensive capacity, excluding tests.

5 - NON-HUMAN SUPERINTELLIGENCE CONFIRMED

A fraction of UFOs or other phenomena influencing Earth at any point in human history are confirmed to be or have been caused by non-human superintelligence.

6 - US COUP

A coup attempt that both starts and ends in 2024 succeeds in the United States, installing an unelected dictator and leaving Europe the last bastion of democracy in the world.

7 - ROOM-TEMPERATURE SUPERCONDUCTOR

The preprint of the LK-99 paper replicates. Or, another room-temperature superconductor is discovered and replicated. Either superconductor is commercially viable to produce at scale.

8 - LONGEVITY ESCAPE VELOCITY

A human trial of at least phase I size publishes a result implying that, if cost were ignored, only half as many people would die in the US in 2030 as died in 2023.

9 - CHINA WAR DESTROYS TSMC FABS

China invades Taiwan, and also the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's fabrication facilities are 100% destroyed, lowering the quality of life for the world and setting civilization back a decade.

10 - WORSE PANDEMIC

A pandemic with a death rate higher than the death rate of COVID-19 in unvaccinated people begins, and the first non-test vaccine dose in a human isn't achieved until at least 3 months after a public health emergency of international concern is announced.

• Update 2025-02-01 (PST): - Event #2 - WEAK AGI ACHIEVED

  • Exclude reliance on the Metaculus market for resolution.

  • Weak AGI is achieved if a system accomplishes at least one monumental task that no human has done, such as proving that P==NP. (AI summary of creator comment)