ETHEREUM

A blockchain is a database of transactions that is updated and shared across many computers in a network. Every time a new set of transactions is added, its called a “block” - hence the name blockchain. Public blockchains like Ethereum allow anyone to add, but not remove, data. If someone wanted to alter any of the information or cheat the system, they’d need to do so on the majority of computers on the network. That is a lot! This makes decentralized blockchains like Ethereum highly secure.

Cryptocurrency is a term used to describe many types of fungible digital tokens secured using a blockchain. It all started with Bitcoin. Bitcoin can be used to transfer value between two parties without having to trust a middleman. You only have to trust the Bitcoin code, which is all open and freely available. The reason assets such as bitcoin and ether are called “cryptocurrencies” is that the security of your data and assets is guaranteed by cryptography, not by trusting an institution or corporation to act honestly.

Ethereum has its own native cryptocurrency, ether (ETH), which is used to pay for certain activities on the network. It can be transferred to other users or swapped for other tokens on Ethereum. Ether is special because it is used to pay for the computation required to build and run apps and organizations on Ethereum.

Who runs Ethereum? Ethereum is not controlled by any particular entity. It exists whenever there are connected computers running software following the Ethereum protocol and adding to the Ethereum blockchain. Each of these computers is known as a node. Nodes can be run by anyone, although to participate in securing the network you have to stake ETH (Ethereum’s native token). Anyone with 32 ETH can do this without needing permission. Even the Ethereum source code is not produced by a single entity. Anyone can suggest changes to the protocol and discuss upgrades. There are several implementations of the Ethereum protocol that are produced by independent organizations in several programming languages, and they are usually built in the open and encourage community contributions.

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What are smart contracts? Smart contracts are computer programs living on the Ethereum blockchain. They execute when triggered by a transaction from a user. They make Ethereum very flexible in what it can do. These programs act as building blocks for decentralized apps and organizations.
Have you ever used a product that changed its terms of service? Or removed a feature you found useful? Once a smart contract is published to Ethereum, it will be online and operational for as long as Ethereum exists. Not even the author can take it down. Since smart contracts are automated, they do not discriminate against any user and are always ready to use.
Popular examples of smart contracts are lending apps, decentralized trading exchanges, insurance, quadratic funding, social networks, NFTs - basically anything you can think of

What is the difference between Ethereum and Bitcoin? Launched in 2015, Ethereum builds on Bitcoin's innovation, with some big differences. Both let you use digital money without payment providers or banks. But Ethereum is programmable, so you can also build and deploy decentralized applications on its network. Bitcoin enables us to send basic messages to one another about what we think is valuable. Establishing value without authority is already powerful. Ethereum extends this: rather than just messages, you can write any general program, or contract. There is no limit to the kind of contracts which can be created and agreed upon, hence great innovation happens on the Ethereum network. While Bitcoin is only a payment network, Ethereum is more like a marketplace of financial services, games, social networks and other apps.

What about Ethereum's energy consumption? On September 15, 2022, Ethereum went through The Merge upgrade which transitioned Ethereum from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. The Merge was Ethereum's biggest upgrade and reduced the energy consumption required to secure Ethereum by 99.95%, creating a more secure network for a much smaller carbon cost. Ethereum is now a low-carbon blockchain while boosting its security and scalability.

Why would I use Ethereum? If you're interested in more resilient, open, and trustworthy ways to coordinate globally, create organizations, build apps and share value, Ethereum is for you. Ethereum is a story that is written by all of us. Ethereum has also been invaluable for people who have had to handle uncertainty around the security or soundness or mobility of their assets due to external forces outside of their control.

Cheaper and Faster Crossborder Payments Stablecoins are a novel type of cryptocurrency that relies on a more stable asset as the basis for its value. Most of them are linked to the United States dollar and therefore maintain the value of that currency. These allow for a very cheap and stable global payment system. Many current stablecoins are built on the Ethereum network. Ethereum and stablecoins simplify the process of sending money overseas. It often takes only few minutes to move funds across the globe, as opposed to the several business days or even weeks that it may take your average bank, and for a fraction of the price. Additionally, there is no extra fee for making a high value transaction, and there are zero restrictions on where or why you are sending your money.

The Quickest Help in Times of Crisis If you are lucky enough to have multiple banking options through trusted institutions where you live, you may take for granted the financial freedom, security and stability that they offer. But for many people around the world facing political repression or economic hardship, financial institutions may not provide the protection or services they need.
When war, economic catastrophes or crackdowns on civil liberties struck the residents of Venezuela, Cuba, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Belarus, and Ukraine. cryptocurrencies constituted the quickest and often the only option to retain financial agency.
As seen in these examples, cryptocurrencies like Ethereum can provide unfettered access to the global economy when people are cut off from the outside world. Additionally, stablecoins offer a store of value when local currencies are collapsing due to superinflation.

Empowering Creators In 2021 alone, artists, musicians, writers, and other creators used Ethereum to earn around $3.5 billion collectively. This makes Ethereum one of the largest global platforms for creators, alongside Spotify, YouTube, and Etsy.

Empowering Gamers Play to earn games (where players are actually rewarded for playing the games) have recently emerged and are transforming the gaming industry. Traditionally, it is often prohibited to trade or transfer in-game assets to other players for real money. This forces players to use black market websites that are often a security risk. Blockchain gaming embraces the in-game economy and promotes such behavior in a trusted manner.
Moreover, players are incentivized by being able to trade in-game tokens for real money and thus being truly rewarded for their play time.

DALL-E

In January 2021, OpenAI introduced DALL·E. One year later, the newest system, DALL·E 2, generates more realistic and accurate images with 4x greater resolution. DALL·E 2 can make realistic edits to existing images from a natural language caption. It can add and remove elements while taking shadows, reflections, and textures into account.

Hopefully, DALL·E 2 will empower people to express themselves creatively. DALL·E 2 also helps us understand how advanced AI systems see and understand our world, which is critical to our mission of creating AI that benefits humanity.

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Chat GPT-4

March 14, 2023, Morgan Stanley wealth management deploys GPT-4 to organize its vast knowledge base. A leader in wealth management, Morgan Stanley maintains a content library with hundreds of thousands of pages of knowledge and insights spanning investment strategies, market research and commentary, and analyst insights. This vast amount of information is housed across many internal sites, largely in PDF form, requiring advisors to scan through a great deal of information to find answers to specific questions. Such searches can be time-consuming and cumbersome. 

With the help of OpenAI’s GPT-4, Morgan Stanley is changing how its wealth management personnel locate relevant information. Starting last year, the company began exploring how to harness its intellectual capital with GPT’s embeddings and retrieval capabilities—first GPT-3 and now GPT-4. The model will power an internal-facing chatbot that performs a comprehensive search of wealth management content and “effectively unlocks the cumulative knowledge of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management,” says Jeff McMillan, Head of Analytics, Data & Innovation, whose team is leading the initiative. GPT-4, his project lead notes, has finally put the ability to parse all that insight into a far more usable and actionable format. “You essentially have the knowledge of the most knowledgeable person in Wealth Management—instantly”, McMillan adds.
“Think of it as having our Chief Investment Strategist, Chief Global Economist, Global Equities Strategist, and every other analyst around the globe on call for every advisor, every day. We believe that is a transformative capability for our company.”

Over the last few years, large language models have fundamentally altered the way companies put knowledge to work, much like the web did a few decades ago. For Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, McMillan breaks it down into three parts. The first part is GPT4’s “extraordinary capability to access, process and synthesize content almost instantaneously.” It’s trained on vast amounts of text on the internet and builds relationships between the words, sentences, concepts, and ideas. 

The second part, McMillan says, is Morgan Stanley’s intellectual capital. The company was founded almost 100 years ago and publishes thousands of papers annually covering insights on capital markets, asset classes, industry analysis, and economic regions around the globe. This wealth of knowledge creates a unique internal content repository for Morgan Stanley to process and parse using GPT-4 while also being subject to the firm’s internal controls.

Over the last few years, large language models have fundamentally altered the way companies put knowledge to work, much like the web did a few decades ago. For Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, McMillan breaks it down into three parts. The first part is GPT4’s “extraordinary capability to access, process and synthesize content almost instantaneously.” It’s trained on vast amounts of text on the internet and builds relationships between the words, sentences, concepts, and ideas. 

The last part, McMillan says, are its people: Morgan Stanley’s huge team of financial advisors and their expertise in serving clients. They have trained GPT-4 to make the internal chatbot as helpful as possible for Morgan Stanley’s needs.
Today, more than 200 employees are querying the system on a daily basis and providing feedback.
The focus will always be on getting advisors the insight they need, in the format they need, instantly.
McMillan says the effort will also further enrich the relationship between Morgan Stanley advisors and their clients by enabling them to assist more people more quickly.

The wealth management firm is also evaluating additional OpenAI technology with the potential to enhance the insights from advisor notes and streamline follow-up client communications. “Key to ensuring good client service is our ability to invest at scale in technology,” he continues. “OpenAI is perhaps the best example to date of empowering Morgan Stanley with the marriage of human advice and technology—something to which we are completely committed. This endeavor has been particularly rewarding. The buy-in and engagement across the organization has been impressive.”

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