Opinion The Third Edit: In 2025, self-improvement beyond Ozempic and AI

For most people, New Year resolutions are predictable, even somewhat depressing. Lose weight, eat healthy, quit smoking, join the gym — promises to the self that are acknowledgement of the failures of the year gone by. Then there are the more affirmative promises of learning a new language, reading more and making time for travel, family and friends. The question in 2025, though, is whether technology and its conveniences have made the New Year resolution obsolete.

Semaglutide drugs like Ozempic (originally a diabetes medication, now also prescribed and used as a way to treat obesity) can reportedly curb appetites and urges that can help reduce weight and excessive consumption. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and First Friend to the president-elect, recently posted a picture of himself dressed up as “Ozempic Santa”. Tech and AI promise to erase the need to read — all human knowledge can now be queried and put in any format. Large Language Models can even approximate the elusive “voice” that writers, comedians and so many other artists have struggled to find.

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It is perhaps the case that human beings are on the verge of placid perfection, a dystopia where there is no becoming, just being. Maybe thin cyborgs who simply consume — content, products, medication and food — are the future. 2025, though, need not be the year people give in and give up. The point of exercise is not just to be thin: The body was designed to move. Reading is not just about acquiring facts, the act itself is enriching. So go ahead, make the resolutions, the propaganda of technology and its bros notwithstanding.