By Logan E. Gray
www.loganegray.com
QUANTUM COMPUTERS
What’s the difference between a regular computer and a quantum computer? Simply put, it’s the way they process information.
Most likely you're not reading this on a quantum computer; so, the computer you’re using processes information in bits. A bit can hold one of two values, either 1 or 0. However, a quantum computer uses qubits, which allows a bit’s value to hold 1 and 0 at the same time.
So, what does this mean? It means that your computer thinks more linearly while a quantum computer can think in overlapping layers. For example, if I give your computer a thousand problems to solve, it will do them one at a time. However, a quantum computer can solve them all at the same time. This is because its qubits can have more than one value, enabling it to complete tasks faster.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
No, it’s not conscious; it’s a mix of ‘big boy’ algorithms that can make small adjustments to its own code as it learns. Along with this, it thinks and makes decisions by analyzing large data sets and identifying patterns. From those patterns, it can make predictions about new data. However, again it is not conscious; AI can only make decisions based on the rules set in stone by its own algorithms. And who creates those algorithms? Humans. Since humans are not perfect, the algorithms they write aren’t either. This means that AI is not an all-knowing being; it’s only as good as its code.
Now, if that’s still confusing- I asked the AI, ChatGPT, to explain with this prompt, “if you had to explain to a 5-year-old human how artificial intelligence works, what would you say?”
This is its response: “Artificial Intelligence, or AI for short, is like a brain that a computer has. Just like you use your brain to think and make decisions, AI uses its "brain" to think and make decisions too. But instead of being made of flesh and blood like your brain, AI's "brain" is made of computer code that allows it to learn and make decisions based on what it "sees" and "hears" in the world around it. So AI can do things like recognize pictures of animals or understand what you're saying when you talk to it. It's kind of like having a robot friend that can learn and do things just like you can!”
FIAT MONEY
If you’re holding an American dollar bill, it's a fiat currency- which means your money has no actual value. It only has worth because you and the rest of the world think it does.
A fiat currency is a currency that’s not based on a commodity like gold; instead, it’s based on how much confidence people have in the currency’s holding country. Confidence can be boosted by the country’s GDP, economy, military, political affairs, and even technology.
Almost every currency in the world is a fiat currency, allowing governments to print as much money as they want, but the result of that can be inflation and debt.
CBDC
This stands for Centralize Backed Digital Currency. It is basically a government-run cryptocurrency. Just like Bitcoin, you have a digital wallet for your CBDC, but it’s held by your government’s bank. In the case of America, that would be the Federal Reserve.
The White House actually announced the development of a digital dollar CBDC in 2022, which would implement a system called ‘FedNow.’ This would allow you the joy of instant transactions, including international ones. However, since the Feds hold your digital wallet, the government is able to see how much money you have, where it’s going, and who gave it to you.
From studying other CBDC, like China’s digital Yuan, we can see that governments are able to program your money to only be spent on certain things. For example, if stimulus checks were sent out in the form of digital dollars, they can be programmed to just be spent on food and rent/mortgage payments. Theoretically, a CBDC would also allow the government to impose negative and positive interest rates on digital wallets depending on certain situations, including the health of the economy.
Currently, there are 117 countries actively developing their own CBDC.
Comments