Our house is a very, very fine house with seaside views from our yard, life used to be so hard, now everything is easy cause of tax breaks. Thats how Graham Nash might have written a 21st century version of the Crosby, Stills & Nash classicyoud just have to sub in crypto bros and Puerto Rico in the 2020s for hippies and Laurel Canyon in the 1970s. 

Since the pandemic began, wealthy individuals and remote workers have been moving to other states and even countries to live larger while the cost of living remains high. Florida became one of the biggest hotspots, but the influx of people made the Sunshine State less affordable as sky-rocketing housing prices push out its retiree population to cheaper places like Alabama. Now, the remote workers and ultra-wealthy have found a new housing market to wreak havoc on: luxury villas in Puerto Rico. 

The trend has been a slow burn since 2012 when significant tax breaks began, Peter Bazeli, principal and managing director at luxury real-estate firm Weitzman, told the Wall Street Journal. But it really accelerated in 2019 when modifications were passed as part of Act 60 that enabled qualifying new non-local Puerto Rico residents to not pay any federal taxes. Its a better deal than Florida with the same warmth and sunshine; while Floridians enjoy some of the lowest overall taxes in the nation, including no income tax and an average combined sales tax just over 7%, they still have to pay federal taxes. Coupled with the rise of remote work, Puerto Ricos stronger tax breaks emboldened everyone from crypto bros and families to digital nomads and businesses to flock to the island. 

Its created this almost club of high-net worth households that have chosen to establish residence in Puerto Rico, Peter Bazeli, a principal and managing director at luxury real-estate firm Weitzman, told the Wall Street Journal.

The resulting housing boom breathed new life into the Puerto Rican economy as early as 2020, Rodrick Miller, chief executive of Invest Puerto Rico, told Realtor.com. The median sale of million-dollar homes in the exclusive Dorado Beach spiked from $3.4 million in 2021 to $6.2 million in 2023, per data provided to the Journal by Sothebys International Realty. While regular deals have curbed recently thanks to economic issues, sinking crypto, and low inventory, local real estate agents told the Journal (the median home listed in San Juan is $550,000, a 26.4% increase from last year, but a long way down from its peak of $1.15 million two years ago), interest in luxury houses remains highthe Journal cited a house sold for 33% above the original price for $40 million as a prime example. 

But theres an exclusivity to this migration. In contrast to the growing luxury lifestyle, Puerto Rico has been battling a recession and massive debt; yearly economic growth decreased by 12.5% between 2004 and 2020, according to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). While Census data shows that 40% of Puerto Ricos residents live in poverty, 4.9% lower than when tax breaks were introduced more than 10 years ago, the percentage is still highand the poverty rate in Puerto Rico is greater than double the poorest state in the United States, per the CFR. 

The councils data also shows that most native Puerto Ricans have left the island; migration patterns became a bit of a cats cradle as wealthy Americans ditched Florida for Puerto Rico and some Puerto Ricans moved to Florida for greater opportunities (especially after receiving minimal support post natural disasters).

If anybody needs to be moving and buying in Puerto Rico, it needs to be the Puerto Rican people who had no other choice but to leave, María Torres-López, a former resident of Puerto Rico and founder of the nonprofit Diáspora en Resistencia, told Time in 2021.

Still, the wealthy keep pouring in, making Puerto Rico our house; or playground, even if their money is pocketed in their isolated villas. 

Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than anyone was prepared forand its starting to scare people. Now, the chiefs of two tech companies that are front-runners in A.I. are sharing the same messagethat governments should regulate A.I. so it doesnt get out of hand. 

On Monday, top leaders of OpenAI, the maker of buzzy A.I. chatbot ChatGPT, said governments should work together to manage the risk of superintelligence, or advanced development of A.I. systems. 

We can have a dramatically more prosperous future; but we have to manage risk to get there,  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman wrote in a blogpost.

He wasnt the only one calling for more oversight of A.I. Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai also proposed that governments should be more involved in its regulation.

AI needs to be regulated in a way that balances innovation and potential harms, Pichai wrote in the Financial Times on Monday. I still believe AI is too important not to regulate, and too important not to regulate well.

Pichai suggested that governments, experts, academics, and the public all be part of the discussion when developing policies that ensure the safety of A.I. tools. The Google chief also said countries should work together to create robust rules. 

Increased international co-operation will be key, Pichai wrote, adding that the U.S. and Europe must work together on future regulation in the A.I. space.

In his blogpost, Altman echoed the idea of better coordination on the safe development of A.I. rather than multiple groups and countries working separately. He said that one way to do this was by getting major governments around the world to set up a project that current A.I. efforts could become part of.

His other alternative was for a high-level governance body, akin to the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that oversees the use of nuclear power.

We are likely to eventually need something like an IAEA for superintelligence efforts, Altman wrote, adding that significant projects should be subject to an international authority that can inspect systems, require audits, test for compliance with safety standards, place restrictions on degrees of deployment and levels of security. 

Another common thread from the two CEOs was the belief about the revolutionary impact of A.I. on human society. Altman said that superintelligence will be more powerful than other technologies humanity has had to contend with in the past, while Pichai repeated his famous proclamationthat A.I. is the most profound technology humanity is working on.

OpenAI and Google did not immediately return Fortunes request for comment.

As tech CEOs call for greater government involvement in regulations, some others argue that government regulation of A.I. will hamper innovation and that companies should regulate themselves. 

My concern with any kind of premature regulation, especially from the government, is its always written in a restrictive way, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told NBC News this month. What Id much rather do is have an agreement among the key players that we will not have a race to the bottom. 

Growing calls for regulations

A.I.s potential risks are getting a lot of attention as the technology improves. In a Stanford University study published earlier this year, 36% of the experts surveyed acknowledged that A.I. would be ground-breakingbut said its decisions could lead to a nuclear-level catastrophe. Such tools could also be misused for nefarious aims and are often biased, directors at the universitys Institute for Human-Centered A.I. noted. The report also highlighted concerns that top companies could wind up with the most control over A.I.s future.

AI is increasingly defined by the actions of a small set of private sector actors, rather than a broader range of societal actors, the centers directors wrote. 

Those fears have been voiced at the government level, too. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, one of key voices in the discussion about anti-competitive practices, warned that A.I.  could benefit only powerful actors if insufficiently regulated.

A handful of powerful businesses control the necessary raw materials that startups and other companies rely on to develop and deploy A.I. tools, Khan wrote in the New York Times this month. This means that control of A.I. could be concentrated with a few players, leading to the tech being trained on huge troves of data in ways that are largely unchecked. 

Other A.I. experts, including Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called the Godfather of A.I. for his pioneering work in the field, have pointed out the technologys risks. Hinton, who quit his job at Google earlier this month, said he regretted his lifes work because of A.I.s potential dangers if put in the hands of bad actors. He also said that companies should only develop new A.I. if they are prepared for what it can do. 

I dont think they should scale this up more until they have understood whether they can control it, Hinton said, referring to tech companies leading in the A.I. arms race.

Lawmakers have begun discussing regulating A.I. Last month, the Biden administration said it would seek public comments about possible rules. And Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is working with A.I. experts to create new rules and has already released a general framework, the Associated Press reported.  

Responsible AI systems could bring enormous benefits, but only if we address their potential consequences and harms. For these systems to reach their full potential, companies and consumers need to be able to trust them, the National Telecommunications and Information Administrations Alan Davidson said in April, according to Reuters.

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The U.S. surgeon general is calling for tech companies and lawmakers to take immediate action to protect kids and adolescents mental health on social media.

But after years of insufficient action by both social media platforms and policymakers, parents and young people still bear most of the burden in navigating the fast-changing, often harmful world of secretive algorithms, addictive apps and extreme and inappropriate content found on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.

So what can parents and young people do now? Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has some tips.

Our children and adolescents dont have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social medias impact, Murthy said in an advisory released Tuesday. Their childhoods and development are happening now.

TIPS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

Reach out for help: If you or someone you know is being negatively affected by social media, reach out to a trusted friend or adult for help. Check the American Academy of Pediatrics guidance on social media.

Create boundaries: Limit the use of phones, tablets, and computers for at least one hour before bedtime and through the night to make sure you get enough sleep. Keep mealtimes and in-person gatherings devicefree to help build social bonds and engage in twoway conversations with others. Connect with people in person and make unplugged interactions a daily priority.

Be cautious about what you share: Personal information about you has value. Be selective with what you post and share online and with whom, as it is often public and can be stored permanently. If you arent sure if you should post something, its usually best if you dont.

Dont keep harassment or abuse a secret: Reach out to at least one person you trust, such as a close friend, family member, counselor, or teacher, who can give you the help and support you deserve. Visit stopbullying.gov for tips on how to report cyberbullying. If you have experienced online harassment and abuse by a dating partner, contact an expert at Love is Respect for support. If your private images have been taken and shared online without your permission, visit Take It Down to help get them removed.

TIPS FOR PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS

Create a family media plan: Agreed-upon expectations can help establish healthy technology boundaries at home including social media use. A family media plan can promote open family discussion and rules about media use and include topics such as balancing screen/online time, content boundaries, and not disclosing personal information

Create tech-free zones: Restrict the use of electronics at least one hour before bedtime and through the night. Keep meal times and other in-person gatherings tech-free. Help children develop social skills and nurture their inperson relationships by encouraging unstructured and offline connections with others.

Model responsible behavior: Parents can set a good example of what responsible and healthy social media use looks like by limiting their own use, being mindful of social media habits (including when and how parents share information or content about their child), and modeling positive behavior on your social media accounts.

Empower kids: Teach kids about technology and empower them to be responsible online participants at the appropriate age. Discuss with children the benefits and risks of social media as well as the importance of respecting privacy and protecting personal information in age-appropriate ways. Have conversations with children about who they are connecting with, their privacy settings, their online experiences, and how they are spending their time online.

When asked to close their eyes and imagine a sunset, most people can bring to mind an image of the sun setting on the horizon. Some people may experience more vivid details, such as vibrant colours, while others may produce a mental image that is blurry or lacks detail. But recent research has found that some people dont experience mental imagery at all.

This lack of mental imagery is called aphantasia. People with aphantasia are often surprised when they learn others see mental images in their minds. Many people with aphantasia have said they assumed others were speaking metaphorically when they described seeing something in their minds eye.

This is because our internal mental processes are not visible to others, so it is easy to assume everyones minds operate in the same way. It is estimated that roughly 4% of people have aphantasia.

People with aphantasia report a lack of visual imagery, and 97% also report deficits in at least one other modality of imagery, like being unable to imagine certain sounds or tastes.

Everyday mental imagery

Mental imagery is involved in many other everyday cognitive processes. For example, visual and spatial imagery may play an important role in autobiographical memory. One study found that people with a tendency to generate vivid high-resolution mental images of objects and scenes can recall personal memories more quickly and in greater detail.

People with aphantasia are able to remember autobiographical facts, but when recalling life events they report fewer details and a less emotional experience, despite describing the events as important or personally relevant.

Mental imagery is also experienced when dreaming. Interestingly, 60 per cent of people with aphantasia report visual imagery in their dreams, although the quality of their experience is different from that of people with typical imagery ability. When dreaming, people with aphantasia report reduced experience across all senses, lower overall awareness and less sense of control.

The fact that people with aphantasia have some preserved mental imagery while dreaming suggests that aphantasia could be a deficit in voluntary mental imagery the ability to deliberately bring images to mind rather than involuntary mental imagery.

Imagery and reading

Many people also use mental imagery when reading. When we read, we create mental models to help make sense of the words and sentences, and research shows that we create these models using mental imagery.

For example, after reading a sentence such as the ranger saw the eagle in the sky, people tend to be faster to recognize a picture of an eagle with outstretched wings, rather than a picture of an eagle sitting. This is because they visualize or simulate the situation described in the sentence, and this can help them quickly identify a picture that matches the imagined situation.

Aphantasia seems to affect whether or not people build mental models while they read. One study found that when reading descriptions of scary scenarios, people with aphantasia showed less emotional or physiological responses, suggesting their comprehension was less affected by imagined or simulated sensory experience.

These simulations can also occur subconsciously when we read single words and can help us access word meanings more quickly. For instance, when reading words related to sensory experiences such as vision, action and smell, the brain areas responsible for these senses are also active. However, there is currently no research on whether this is also true for people with aphantasia, so we dont know if they subconsciously simulate sensory or motor information when reading single words.

Different modes

People with aphantasia do not always consider their lack of mental imagery to be a negative thing. Some even credit their lack of imagery for success in other areas such as science and mathematics.

People with aphantasia also pursue creative vocations in fields such as visual art or writing, so mental imagery is not the same as imagination. In fact, the University of Glasgow curated an art exhibition featuring work by artists with aphantasia and those with hyperphantasia (extremely vivid mental imagery).

Discovering conditions like aphantasia tells us there may be different modes of cognition. For some people, thinking may involve simulating past sensory experiences both consciously and unconsciously. For others, and for people who have aphantasia, thinking may involve accessing facts.

Aphantasia shows us there is diversity in human cognition despite our assumptions, our minds do not all work the same way. Research on aphantasia is just beginning, but it is a promising avenue to better understand the inner workings of the human mind.

Emiko Muraki is a PhD Candidate, Brain & Cognitive Science, University of Calgary and Penny Pexman, Professor of Psychology, University of Calgary.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As borrowers await the fate of President Joe Bidens widespread student loan forgiveness plan, interest rates on new federal undergraduate student loans will increase by a half percentage point for the upcoming school year to 5.5%, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That would be the highest interest rate on new federal loans since the 2009-2010 school year, or the depths of the Great Recession.

Interest rates for the coming school year are based on the 10-year Treasury bond auction held in May. This years new, higher rates are, in part, another result of the Federal Reserves interest rate hikes over the past year-plus to combat inflation. Three years ago, federal undergraduate loans had an interest rate of 2.75%meaning they will increase by close to 14% since then for the coming year.

Other federal loans will also increase by a half percentage point: Graduate loans will rise to 7.05% from 6.54%, while Parent PLUS loans will rise to 8.05%.

Student loans that originated before this year are not affected by the new rates, meaning borrowers who already have student debt wont have to pay this interest rate when they restart their payments; since 2006, interest rates for federal loans have been fixed for the life of the loan (unless the borrower refinances with a private lender). Private loans are also not affected. The new rates will apply to loans taken out from July 1, 2023 through June 2024.

Interest rates on student loans have been rising since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some advocates, including lawmakers from both major parties, have suggested adopting 0% interest rates for education debt to help stem the student debt crisis.

You wouldnt have these shocking cases that appear sometimes, Oh Ive been paying off loans for 50 years,' Michael Kitchen, senior managing editor at Student Loan Hero, a loan resource site, previously told Fortune about setting rates at 0%. Borrowers would be able to pay off their loans in a matter of years rather than decades.

Higher interest will mean higher payments for the millions of college students (and parents and other family members) who take out loans each academic year; over the life of the loan, that could mean paying thousands of dollars more in interest. Already, around 44 million people owe over $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.

The bump in interest rates could come just as older borrowers are set to resume payments and interest begins to compound on federal loans once again. For over three years, payments and interest accrual have been paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While it is possible that the Biden administration could once again extend the payment pause, experts have said it is not likely (but weve been here before).

Some economists have warned of a student loan cliff when payments resume: Many cash-strapped households, already struggling due to inflation, could suffer even more when the average $396-per-month payment is added back to their financial obligations. Research has found many households with federal student loan balances took on more debtin the form of mortgages, higher credit card balances, etc.during the payment pause. And delinquency rates for those other types of consumer debt are already on the rise.

Currently, the payment moratorium is set to end 60 days after the U.S. Supreme Court reaches a decision on Bidens cancelation plan, or by September, whichever is first. Bidens plan would forgive federal student loans for most borrowers, up to $20,000.

If you feel strongly about the economy one way or the other, it may have as much to do with your political affiliation as what the economic data actually shows. Negative or positive feelings about the economy can be neatly sorted by political affiliation, as seen in the University of Michigans influential monthly survey of consumer sentiment. This is a relatively new thing: Democrats and Republicans takes on the economy were more or less in line with each other until former President Donald Trumps election in 2016, but since then have diverged significantly. Now, under a Democratic president, Republicans are much more likely to be pessimistic about the economy, just as Democrats were under Trumpand it might be making them more susceptible to inflation, according to the wealth management arm of UBS, a global investment bank. The two groups appear to be living on different planets.

Negative reported sentiment may make consumers more vulnerable to profit-led inflation, Paul Donovan, UBS chief economist, wrote in a note Friday. Profit-led inflation episodes occurs when consumers are told a story about why price increases are necessary. Consumers willingness to believe the story allows some companies to sneak in a profit margin increase.

Is greedflation real?

What Donovan refers to as profit-led inflation is also known as greedflation. Unlike normal inflation, which stems from imbalances in supply and demand, greedflation happens when companies take advantage of economic conditions to improve their margins by raising prices under the cover of other inflationary factors. In the U.S., U.K., and Europe, companies have raised prices citing higher raw material costs due to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, but corporate profits have nonetheless surged to record highs over the past year.

Donovan argued that not only is greedflation real, it has a disproportionate effect depending on how consumers feel about the economy. In the U.S., Republicans have soured against the Biden administrations economic policies, with only 8% of Republicans reporting they were somewhat or very confident Biden could make good decisions on economic policy compared to 69% of Democrats, according to an April Pew survey.

Isabella Weber of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, was one of the first economists to call out corporate greed as an underlying reason behind inflation in 2021. While she was largely criticized for her views by fellow economists at the time, she has been winning the debate of late. Several months after Weber's research, a study from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that more than half of inflation since mid-2020 could be attributed to larger corporate profit margins. Fed vice chair Lael Brainard was more recently a key establishment figure in validating the theory, as she called attention to a price-price spiral that could be causing inflation. Last month, Albert Edwards, chief global strategist of the 159-year old bank Société Générale took it a step further, saying the "astonishing" amount of "greedflation" was prompting him to think "we may be looking at the end of capitalism." 

Pessimism and lack of faith in the government can make consumers more vulnerable and likely to accept corporations narratives that higher prices are inevitable, UBS' Donovan argues off the back of this groundswell against greedflation. 

If some consumers are inclined to believe that everything in the economy is bad, they are likely to be more accepting of stories about the necessity of raising prices. Of course prices are going up. What else do you expect with this government? becomes an accepted narrative, he wrote.

To be sure, the shoe was on the other foot just a few years ago. In 2019, polls showed that 97% of Republicans were happy with current economic conditions compared to 62% of Democrats. And the Trump economy was objectively good in several ways. The S&P 500s annualized returns grew 13.7% during Trumps term in office, the third-fastest growth any President has overseen since 1929, behind Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The divergence continued during the early days of the pandemic in 2020, when many Republican voters cited stock market gains as reason behind their approval for Trump, despite the fact only around half of Americans own any stock at all. 

And Trump was somewhat revolutionary in a macroeconomic sense, as he publicly campaigned for interest rates to remain low and continue fostering economic growth, with economists surprised that inflation didn't get out of control as the economy "ran hot." That looks a bit different a few years later, as inflation has hit several 40-year highs amid the pandemic, and some observers, including some Republicans, have argued that in retrospect, Trump's strategy contributed to the inflation surge since 2021.

Donovan, for his part, is astonished by the Michigan survey. The detail is hilarious. Michigan sentiment data identifies the reported sentiment of Republicans and Democrats; the two groups appear to be living on different planets. If your party is out of the White House, all is doom and despondency. If your party is in the White House, the US economy is a perfect paradise, Donovan wrote.

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell and many other economists have long argued that rising wages, not fatter profits, are the root cause behind high prices, with former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers struggling to respond to Jon Stewarts questions on the topic during a March interview. But despite the pushback, the greedflation argument is gathering steam. 

Donovan wrote in a March report that we are in the last of three inflationary waves to have hit since the pandemic. The first two stemmed from supply chain snarls and temporary disruptionthe traditionally held causes of inflationbut fatter profit margins are fueling the current one. 

Donovan wrote that companies are able to spin their own stories in the current inflationary environment, and are buoyed by political division and disdain for the government. He added that the Feds demand-side prescription to inflation of higher interest rates could eventually resolve the problem, but it would be a crude and unnecessarily destructive policy approach, while convincing consumers that they do not have to passively accept companies yarns of burdensome price increases might be a more effective strategy.

You can now use ChatGPT to explore Solana.

The Solana Foundation, which supports the blockchain, integrated the plugin this week with an eye on NFTs, a sector in which Solana is playing an increasingly prominent role. The chatbot, available for download on Github, not only can be used to search for and purchase NFTs, it can help transfer tokens as well as simplify the complex data that accompanies crypto transactions, according to a statement released Tuesday.

Every developer building consumer-oriented apps should be thinking about how their app is going to be interacted with through an A.I. model because this is a new paradigm for telling computers what to do, Anatoly Yakovenko, a Solana cofounder and Solana Labs CEO, said in the statement. A.I. will make Solana more usable and understandable.

The Solana plugin has been teased since April, and in a Bloomberg interview earlier this month, cofounder Raj Gokal said it should feel like a personal helper.

This is just another step in making it that much easier to interact with the chain and feel like youre maybe speaking to an adviser or a copilot that is helping you navigate the chain and its assets, he said. 

Instead of scanning long documents and complicated transaction data, the plugin will allow users to ask questions like which NFTs they can buy with the SOL tokens in their account, TechCrunch reported. 

We believe that the blockchain space is way too technical, Tal Tchwella, Solana Labs head of product, told the outlet. 

The plugin is aimed at making the blockchain more accessible for common users, but having to download it from Github could be a potential obstacle in it reaching a wider audience.

Solana has recently upped its ambition after taking a reputational hit in 2022 for its ties to Sam Bankman-Fried. Gokal told Fortune earlier this month that the FTX meltdown was in the rearview mirror, and that the Solana ecosystem was thriving in part due to emerging projects and applications.

Gokal told Bloomberg that the blockchain is still at very early stages, with its A.I. integrations, but the Solana Foundation is trying to speed this up by investing in development programs.

The Solana Foundation also said on Tuesday that its increased its A.I.-focused strategic grants program to $10 million from the $1 million previously announced. The program has already received about 50 applications, with those receiving grants likely being awarded $5,000 to $25,000. 

SOL, the blockchains native cryptocurrency, was trading up nearly 2% to about $20 on Tuesday afternoon. The cryptocurrency has doubled since Jan. 1, outperforming Bitcoin and Ether, which are up 64% and 54% over the same period, respectively.

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