It’s been a while since Chris and Jason did an episode with just the two of them on The Recombobulator Lab. So they have a lot to chat about. They are going to talk about some predictions for the year of 2023 and chat a bit about what’s been going on in their respective countries so far this year.

Chris and Jason note that inflation is super high at the moment in both the US and Australia. Chris notes that in his local shop free range chicken cost $9.99 for about a pound, but the organic one was $19.99. Chris quotes a friend of his: “Why do we have to pay more for someone not to poison us?”

As well as this high inflation is a very high employment rate, but the tables are turning in this. Lay-offs are starting in some companies in the US. Amazon recently let a lot of staff go.

The prediction: Inflation will continue for a while anyway.

The guys speak about AI software ChatGPT, an AI bot where you enter a question or prompt and it writes content based on this.

Jason even challenged it to write in certain referencing and writing styles and it did a great job. And the writing was plagiarism free.

The prediction: that this won’t actually take people's jobs, but make them a lot easier.

Jason and Christ discuss Elon Musk's latest negative publicity. He’s saying more outrageous things and his reputation is going down.

We can’t forget that he’s a genius with tech but Twitter is a different game. It is a sociological exercise, where he is potentially in over his head.

The prediction: Chat GP said it is hard to tell if Twitter will survive Elons leadership but based on his past history of success he might.

Will we still do this in 2023? Chris and Jason think that the way we work will never be the same again. People have gotten used to a certain way of living that communing into an office does not allow. People may go to coworking spaces or work in the office sometimes but not full time.

Chris sees the benefit of the new remote work culture as in his company Tsongas they can now hire from all over the country. They have a much larger pool of potential employees to choose from, and on the flipside knowledge or support workers don’t have to choose between their career and their preferred homebase.

The prediction: online/computer work will never be the same again.