Oct 4, 2022
New AI Tool Launches as The Federal Reserve Continues to Exploit its Power
A new AI tool can transform descriptions into realistic images using Artificial Intelligence, but why has it become a cause of concern? The Federal Reserve continues to exploit its power over the world, and can anyone stop them? Scientists experiment with storing data in DNA. A new solution for affordable housing emerges as prices remain high. Here are this week’s stories.
The Rise of AI tools
A new tool that utilizes Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now available to the public. DALL·E, a machine learning model developed by OpenAI, is an AI tool that can transform a description into realistic images. Essentially, users type a description like “an oil painting on a canvas being painted by a robot with a paintbrush and wires,” and DALL·E will generate a similar one to the one above. Until now, OpenAI’s tool was only available to a select group of users, including academics, artists, and journalists, to curb the potential for bad players to leverage the device for harmful uses. Recently, OpenAI removed its waitlist and gave everyone immediate access by improving their safety systems and making the filters more robust to stop misuse. The launch of DALL·E also led to an outbreak of similar AI tools, including Stable Diffusion and Midjourney. Google and Meta also quickly announced that they are creating systems that utilize the same technology, but their models are not ready for the public. Although these tools have various benefits, there is a cause for concern as they become more advanced. Critics have already raised questions regarding plagiarism and copyright. Although DALL·E was the one who generated the image, it used aspects of millions of pictures on the web, so who really owns the image? Also, how can AI-generated images be identified from real pictures in the future? As the tool advances and learns more from the web, how will we be able to decipher the truth?
The Federal Reserve’s Power
The Federal Reserve, a privately run bank that controls the US monetary system, continues to satisfy the elites. The institution has controlled our money supply for over a century and is probably the most secretive organization in our country. The Federal Reserve was supposedly created to maintain the stability of the US dollar and avoid economic downturns. Yet, the American dollar has lost 95% of its purchasing power during the Bank’s existence, and it has only exacerbated most depressions during our history. The Fed is also not backed by a precious metal like silver, which gives it the power to print infinite pieces of paper to which the world gives value, leading to inflation. And inflation only benefits the elites because it allows the US government to spend money without raising taxes, which usually flows into large corporations, banks, or the Stock Market. During the pandemic, the Fed printed trillions of dollars to give the illusion that Americans were getting more money when the actual value was going down. Now, the Fed has raised interest rates significantly, which has further deteriorated the financial situation of most Americans. It will be much harder to buy homes, pay back debt, and start a business with such a high-interest rate, and it seems like the Fed will not stop in the coming years. Is there a way to gain back control of our monetary system? Maybe if we replace it with a cryptocurrency, or a new international reserve currency backed by silver.
DNA Could be Used to Store Data in the Future
Humans create over 2.5 million gigabytes of data every day, and that amount is growing exponentially. The rate at which we produce data will eventually exceed our ability to store it, so we need a more efficient way to store data. Scientists and corporations believe that DNA, the molecule that stores our genetic code, could solve this problem. Currently, hard drives use ones and zeros to store data. Researchers report that they can encode digital data in DNA using the letters that represent its four chemical bases: A (adenine), G (guanine), C (cytosine), and T (thymine). Storing data in DNA would have many advantages. Two hundred fifteen million gigabytes of data could be stored in a single gram of DNA, and it can last hundreds of thousands of years if kept in a cool, dry place, unlike hard drives, which degrade over time. New technologies can write and read large amounts of DNA simultaneously, allowing it to be scaled up. The only thing holding back this technology is the cost. It costs $7000 to synthesize the 2 megabytes of data in the files and another $2000 to read it, but prices will eventually go down.
3D Printed Homes are the Solution for Affordable Housing
Home prices and interest rates are at record highs, causing homes to not be affordable for most Americans. According to the National Association of Realtors, the median home sales price in 2021 was $346,900, up 16.9% from 2020 and the highest on record going back to 1999. Home sales had the strongest year since 2006, with 6.12 million homes sold, up 8.5% from 2020. Home prices remain high, and now that interest rates have started rising, it has become costly to own a home. Homebuyers are currently running into interest rates as high as 7%, making homes even more expensive and out of reach of many Americans, but 3D-printed housing could change that trend. 3D-printed houses are partially built by a robotic construction system that stacks layers upon concrete from the ground up to create the framework for a new home. The 3D printer can make 40 percent of a house, and then workers have to come and finish it. This is transforming the speed and cost at which homes are being developed and sold. Ultimately, it should save the buyer between 20% and 30%. Across America, many 3D house printing companies are emerging and building affordable neighborhoods.
Above are my stories for the week of October 3, 2022. Thank you, and see you next week!
