The past 12 months have been undeniably busy for those working in AI. There have been more successful product launches than we can count, and even Nobel Prizes. But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. AI is an unpredictable technology, and the increasing availability of generative models has led people to test their limits in new, weird, and sometimes harmful ways. These were some of 2024’s biggest AI misfires.  AI slop infiltrated almost every corner of the internet Generative AI makes creating reams of text, images, videos, and other types of material a breeze. Because it takes just a few seconds between entering a prompt for your model of choice to spit out the result, these models have become a quick, easy way to produce content on a massive scale. And 2024 was the year we started calling this (generally poor quality) media what it is—AI slop.   This low-stakes way of creating AI slop means it can now be found in pretty much every corner of the internet: from the newsletters in your inbox and books sold on Amazon, to ads and articles across the web and shonky pictures on your social media feeds. The more emotionally evocative these pictures are (wounded veterans, crying children, a signal of support in the Israel-Palestine conflict) the more likely they are to be shared, resulting in higher engagement and ad revenue for their savvy creators. AI slop isn’t just annoying—its rise poses a genuine problem for the future of the very models that helped to produce it. Because those models are trained on data scraped from the internet, the increasing number of junky websites containing AI garbage means there’s a very real danger models’ output and performance will get steadily worse.  AI art is warping our expectations of real events 2024 was also

Finance is increasingly a weapon of war. United States policymakers and our allies focus too narrowly on macroeconomic tools like sanctions and promoting the dollar as a reserve currency when the modern front is evolving. Today, the real battles are being waged on smartphones and in the global currency markets. China is waging a multi-decade plan to displace the United States’ greatest asset: the dollar. The dollar is critical to the United States’ economic and geopolitical power as the global reserve currency. Without it, our influence would weaken, and our debt would become a bigger problem. This is precisely what the Chinese Communist Party and the Kremlin want. China and Russia have shed billions of dollars worth of U.S. Treasury holdings while growing their stockpiles of gold. Our sanctions, designed to separate countries from the “Western” economic system, are no longer enough of a deterrent for those who can control financial activity within their borders and project their power outward. Authoritarian adversaries — including China, Iran and Russia — are actively building parallel cross-border economic systems that will pull into their orbits not only neighboring countries but also our allies who trade heavily with them. For example, over half of businesses in Japan accept Alipay, while more than one-third accept WeChat Pay. This distribution gives two Chinese firms unprecedented visibility into the individual market transactions of Japanese consumers and businesses. It could allow China to disrupt Japan’s economy should tensions escalate, such as in a potential conflict over Taiwan. How the U.S. can respond China sees financial technology and cryptocurrency as tools to extend its financial power and surveillance globally. The United States must respond in two ways: export our financial technology and systems worldwide and embrace bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset instead of stifling innovation. Lawmakers and politicians

Over the past year, the crypto industry has attracted users on an exponential scale, with monthly active addresses tripling from 70 million in 2023 to over 220 million in 2024. With over 300 chains listed, the ecosystem should be able to cater to the needs of all types of users sustainably. However, in this sprawling landscape, a majority of activity and liquidity is locked within multiple Ethereum Layer 2’s. In its current state, Ethereum is reminiscent of early 1500s Europe, which experienced breakthroughs like the printing press and advanced shipbuilding that enhanced resource management. Today, Ethereum’s flourishing DeFi ecosystem is equipped with primitives such as lending and borrowing, staking and restaking. However, much like Europe’s challenges with scarce and overutilized resources, Ethereum faces obstacles in making other assets useful in its own home — its Layer 1. The current blockchain ecosystem thus remains frustratingly fragmented. While chain abstraction has been a trending narrative with many projects making progress, solutions like intents usually involve sequencers that favor large players when filling orders between blockchains, leading to centralization. Furthermore, there is no additional utility created for users as most solutions are focused on simply swapping assets. Despite impressive technological foundations, we’ve created a landscape where digital assets are constrained rather than empowered. Top blockchain resources such as Ethereum are underutilized and limited by rigid architectural boundaries. For true interoperability to exist, in 2025, we must take a step back and re-approach blockchain modularity from a fresh perspective. The illusion of modularity The common analogy of blockchain as “Lego blocks” oversimplifies a complex technological landscape. Unlike uniform construction pieces, blockchain components are intricate systems with specific dependencies and complex interoperability challenges. Consider a practical scenario: moving an asset between different blockchain networks should be straightforward. Yet current solutions like basic token swaps offer

In a statement posted on its website recently, the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC) announced that it has “adopted a significant overhaul of rules regulating oil and gas waste management facilities in Texas”. The development comes “after extensive reviews of public comments and stakeholder input”, the RRC outlined in the statement, which highlighted that the group’s commissioners voted to adopt the new rules at an open meeting on December 17. The RRC pointed out in the statement that this is “the first overhaul of RRC’s waste management rules in four decades”. It said the new rules help the RRC continue to safeguard groundwater and surface water while adapting to modern waste management practices, such as recycling produced water, and recent advancements in production methods. In its statement, the RRC noted that the regulations “cover waste from oil and gas operations … as well as waste from other operations for which the legislature has given the RRC jurisdiction including geothermal, carbon sequestration, and brine mining wells”. The RRC said the rule updates requirements on the design, construction, operation, monitoring, and closure of waste management units and stated that it will improve the RRC’s ability to track and collect data on oilfield waste transported throughout Texas. It also highlighted in the statement that the new rules “codify informal guidance that RRC experts have developed over the course of several decades to give operators and the public certainty on how regulations of waste management facilities are carried out”. “The adopted rules will enhance the RRC’s oversight of waste management facilities,” the RRC said in the statement. “The agency now has staff dedicated to environmental permit compliance – a team that reviews waste management facility reports and inspections and follows-up on those reviews to quickly rectify any issues,” it added. In the statement, RRC Chairman