2023 has been a tumultuous year for tech

As we approach the end of the year, it's a good time to look back on 2023. The word that comes to mind is tumultuous, which, says Merriam Webster's online dictionary, means “loud, excited, and emotional.”

The biggest story of the year has been the rollout of generative AI. ChatGPT was launched on Nov. 30, 2022. By January of 2023, it was the fastest growing tech application in history with 100 million monthly active users. Shortly after its launch, Google introduced its competing Bard product, and Microsoft, which is a major investor in ChatGPT, rolled out a ChatGPT-powered generative AI version of its Bing search engine.

Over the course of 2023, generative AI has come to dominate tech. It seems as if just about everyone in Silicon Valley is talking about it as many companies announce AI enhancements based on similar technologies. Meta, which had bet the company on its virtual and extended reality “Metaverse” products, is now building GAI into its social products, including adding Meta AI agents that can answer questions and engage with users or groups of users in conversations on a variety of topics. Snapchat has announced a + service, which allows users to “use AI to create and send a Snap of whatever you know will make a friend's day,” according to a company statement. I've been covering tech since the early 1980s, and I've never seen a technology gain this much traction in this little amount of time.

X, formerly Twitter

Another big 2023 story is the demise of Twitter and the emergence of alternatives, including Meta's

Threads service. Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022, and over the course of 2023, completely transformed the service, including changing its name to X. Although he and some of his supporters would argue he's made it better, I'm among those who feel that it's been degraded, in part because he has rein