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Werk Week News Update - Brain-to-Text, AI Agents & Crypto Education

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We cover some groundbreaking developments in technology and their effects on society. We discuss Ripple's new nonprofit aimed at educating the public about cryptocurrency, Meta's new brain-to-text technology, and Salesforce's AI-driven AgentForce 2DX update.

• Ripple launches the National Cryptocurrency Association (NCA) to promote cryptocurrency education sends a $50 million grant to support its initiatives 
• Meta develops a non-invasive brain-to-text system that decodes thoughts into text 
• Salesforce unveils AgentForce 2DX, enhancing AI automation in business workflows 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back, architects. This is the work week news update. Today is March the 5th, 2025. Glad to be back. We took a week off last week just to I don't know, just needed a little break, but we're right back at it this week. We have three topics to discuss today. One is the latest on a new nonprofit that has been created really to push cryptocurrency, so we'll get into that. We'll also talk about Meta's new brain to text functionality, so that should be exciting. We'll discuss that for a little bit. And then, last but not least, we will discuss the new AgentForce 2DX update from Salesforce that was just released today, actually. So let's get started.

Speaker 1:

So, first up, when we think about cryptocurrency, the main token or coin that comes to mind, the one that everybody knows about, is Bitcoin. Right, we all know about Bitcoin. A lot of times, we're looking at the price of Bitcoin Is it going up or down? And most people, when they think about cryptocurrency, they are thinking about Bitcoin. However, there are many, many, almost thousands and thousands of different tokens and coins that exist in this cryptocurrency world, and those coins and tokens can be used to buy things, exchange assets, create different types of economy and business in small communities, all online, and so when we think of cryptocurrency, I just want tokens called.

Speaker 1:

Ripple actually launched a nonprofit recently to educate the public on cryptocurrency, so the National Cryptocurrency Association, nca, ripple has initiated this, this nonprofit organization with the pure focus on educating the public about cryptocurrency adoption, and this move really aims to kind of make it normal or normalize digital assets and promote just responsible usage of cryptocurrency tokens, coins, so on and so forth, and they have put up a large check to get this organization started. So Ripple is supporting NCA with a $50 million grant, really just highlighting its commitment to fostering a broader understanding of cryptocurrencies amongst the general public. There's obviously a sector of our population that is into cryptocurrency and businesses have already been built around that, but when you think about this 50 million dollar grant to support this nonprofit, that's that's a big, big statement, and so the organization plans to provide educational resources, explanations, real life stories of cryptocurrency usage. All of this to try to bridge the gap, or the knowledge gap as it relates to cryptocurrency. Nca it's technically a 501c4 nonprofit, but that C4 status is going to allow them to do some lobbying, do some advocacy. So this isn't just about informing the public. This is also about advocating for new laws and changes as it relates to cryptocurrency. Matter of fact, ripple itself currently has an ongoing legal battle with the SEC, so this move clearly highlights the company's efforts to influence public perception and discussions all around cryptocurrency. So it looks like it's going to be a big year for crypto. Matter of fact, president Trump just announced a cryptocurrency summit that is scheduled for this Friday, march 7th, and that is aimed to discuss the future of digital assets and regulatory frameworks all around cryptocurrency. Ripple CEO is going to be in attendance and is expected to heavily participate. So all of this action from the nonprofit being created and these summits and all the laws that are changing cryptocurrency looks like it's a ghost, a green light here in America over the next at least four years while President Trump is in office.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so next up, meta's breakthrough in non-invasive brain to text technology. You heard that correctly there has been a breakthrough in Meta's research lab. So Meta, in collaboration with some other organizations, has developed a non-invasive brain to text system that is capable of decoding unspoken sentences from brain signals with up to 80% accuracy. So I'm going to say that again A non-invasive brain-to-text system that can decode unspoken sentences that somebody is thinking in their brain. This advancement gives us the ability to eliminate the need for surgical implants, and you know I'm saying the need as if, like anybody needs surgical implants. But we know that there are companies and there are institutions that are working towards trying to intercept and capture brain activity, and so, in that field, this allows them to capture some of those thoughts without putting anything inside your brain. And so this is, in that field, for those folks that are interested in that, for those companies that are researching that, this marks a significant step towards brain and computer interface technology, the actual technical approach. Really what they're doing. The system utilizes magnetic fields that are produced from this brain neural activity. So what they did was they got participants to pretty much hook their brain up and essentially they recorded what they were thinking while that participant was typing out sentences, and so they recorded all this data, they got all these patterns and they use that data to train an AI model that can predict the corresponding text that is coming out of somebody's thoughts. And so, with that particular ability, now they can simply, without the person typing on the computer, they can just think what they want to type and it shows up on the screen.

Speaker 1:

And this has a lot of potential applications when you think about it. It's not all doom and gloom. This technology holds promise for individuals who may have communication impairments, so it might offer a means to translate thoughts directly into text. It could really revolutionize really human computer interaction by enabling hands free control of devices and other things just from your thought alone and other things just from your thought alone and, if you think about it, to have something that's just on your head or maybe at some point not even on your head, but your ability to be able to think it and type it out or control a system is extremely powerful, extremely dangerous, but extremely, extremely powerful. Matter of fact, the ability to decode brain activity is raising a lot of significant ethical questions regarding privacy and consent. So there's going to be a need for some robust regulations to really prevent potential misuse of brain data by corporations, by government. So we're going to need to have regulations in place as some of this technology comes on board. But I think you know we're still a long way from this being used by everyday citizens. You know, despite its potential, the technology currently requires all these expensive gadgets and equipment and it has to be done in a lab with MEG scanners and so that you know. Right now there's no practical tool for us to be using this out on the street, but we know how technology works, we know how fast it moves, so be on the lookout for this over the next five to 10 years, where folks have maybe a headband on and you are sitting at your screen and you're just thinking away instead of typing away.

Speaker 1:

And last but not least, salesforce, being used by a lot of corporations in America, has announced its AgentForce update to 2DX. So the Salesforce AgentForce update 2DX was released just today and it was unveiled by Salesforce as an advanced iteration of this digital labor platform. They call it a digital labor platform. That is translation for bots that replace human workers. So they released this update. It is designed to embed these proactive autonomous AI agents into a variety of different business workflows. So this new release, this development, really aims to enhance operational efficiency in companies by allowing these AI automated agents to anticipate the needs of the company and initiate processes without any human the company and initiate processes without any human prompts or any human input, and so that's really one of its key features, this new rollout is this proactive agent feature.

Speaker 1:

So, unlike some of the kind of the previous versions of this. These agents can just operate autonomously, they can monitor data changes, they can execute tasks across different systems in the company and really on the developer side, it allows folks that maybe aren't even deep into coding and things like that to create these agents and create different types of tools for creation, testing, deployment of these agents. They have a marketplace where you can literally go. If you are a Salesforce subscriber, you can go in and select different agents that you feel like might be good for your business. Hey, give me a customer service agent, give me an accounting agent, give me an agent that's going to help with internal human resources. Right, I mean, it's all kinds of different agents that already exist in the agent marketplace right now for Salesforce and it kind of facilitates collaboration and really acceleration of these agents across many, many, many different industries.

Speaker 1:

Salesforce is truly aiming, I believe, to reimagine work and think about it in terms of these agents and replacing workers with agents that can handle routine tasks and can truly augment full-time employee capabilities and everything from enhancing customer service to crunching numbers. They believe these agents can do these tasks now on a regular basis. Salesforce does anticipate that the adoption of AI agents is really just in its early, early stages. These technologies, they believe, will contribute to revenue significant revenue for Salesforce, but also saving money for a lot of its customers across their portfolio and they're kind of looking at the year 2027 for full adoption of some of these agents within companies.

Speaker 1:

I was listening to something or a speaker the other day and they were saying that really, the next billion dollar company, don't be surprised if it comes from a single person business, right, or one or two person business that is surrounded by other agents that can handle all of the other different tasks that a normal business would need, and not to go as far as to say that the generation that's coming up now, that is in high school, in middle school, they might be the first generation in a long time that will not be working. They will not work and I know that is that is somewhat scary to some to think about. Oh, my goodness, what's going to happen? They won't have work, they won't have any jobs, they won't have a way to make money. I actually don't believe that.

Speaker 1:

I think there will be a lot of different ways for these kids to make money, but I think it's a beautiful thing. I mean most folks, at least in my generation and those immediately before mine. They spent the majority of their life 19, 18, 19, all the way up to sometimes 60, 65, 70 years old, working right Monday through Friday or 40 hours a week. Working man, what an amazing thing if we can have a generation come and, yeah, that's not something that they did, that was something that their ancestors did, that was something that their grandparents did.

Speaker 1:

They don't work. They don't work. They get money in other ways. I think that can open up the door to a lot of amazing things, but the groundwork is being laid by companies like Salesforce and others in terms of deploying these AI agents that can do. A lot of these routine tasks that we consider to be work now can absolutely be handled by LLMs and AI models in the very, very near future. And that is it for your Workweek News Update. Please, please, don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. And until next time, keep up the good work, keep up the scratch work, keep building Bye.