If you are looking for the best place to hide out from the rest of the world, look no further than the border town in Washington state, split by the “49th parallel” border between America and Canada.
Reported as one of the safest places during the pandemic, Point Roberts is an unincorporated community. The 1100 residents (as per the 2020 census) make do with just one supermarket, one medical clinic, one fire department, an airpark with a single runway, and a quiet marina. The nearest hospital is a 20 mins drive across the border on the Canadian side.
Point Roberts is essentially an island detached from the USA mainland. This orphaned town can be entered only by land through Canada, or by flying or sailing across the Boundary Bay.
Fun fact: The Point Roberts Airpark was built by a cartoonist who bought the land in 1967. There are currently only 2 charter flights operating at this airstrip every Tuesdays and Thursdays to and from Bellingham, WA.
This predominantly White democratic town employs about half of its dwindling population in Retail Trade, Construction, and Health Care & Social Assistance. About 5000 tourists, mostly Canadian vacationers, flock to this peninsula for whale or dolphin watching during peak seasons, but the economy of Point Roberts has been suffering since the pandemic.
Many businesses have gone out of business due to a labor shortage. Its restaurants have permanently closed, leaving just one that is open during the weekends, a couple of bakeries, and a gas station convenience store. There are no delivery services either, unless they can find a Canadian restaurant willing to door dash a pickup at the border.
American citizens from Washington state are reluctant to travel the distance for work through four border check points, especially with the limited and high rental costs in Point Roberts. Meanwhile, Canadian citizens need a valid work permit to apply for jobs here.
The Point Roberts Chamber of Commerce continues to plead with the current administration to help get them unstuck from this situation. In 2023, an open letter was sent to President Biden urging lawmakers to make an exception to U.S. work permit policies for hiring more Canadian temporary workers. Their plight seems to be falling on deaf ears.
Take a 5-minute break to watch Brian Calder, the Chamber President, who shares his concerns with a Canadian reporter. Point Roberts, the U.S. town on B.C.'s border, wants Canadian workers to help solve labour shortage.
For more information on visiting Point Roberts, visit their official website.
Meanwhile, on the Mainland: The Rise of Deepfake Voices
When Biden calls, I usually do not pick up. It’s the same with any politician, really. When did I authorize these candidates to call me? Was it when I donated a dollar to their campaign that one time? It’s irritating to say the least.
Telemarketing calls are disruptive and frustrating. It’s old-school thinking and very intrusive. It’s not enough that they inject ads into our feeds to grab our attention as we mindlessly scroll through social media. They also come at us from every direction with everything they got, and now they’ve got AI.
Did you hear about the call President Biden made to New Hampshire voters? Biden asked voters to “save” their votes for November. It was a fake call using AI voice cloning technology that officials traced back to a man in Texas.
Using AI tools like Eleven Labs, it has become so easy to create voice clones which sound extremely authentic. Gone are the days when you had to cut-and-paste clips to put together a conversation that didn’t happen. Now we can generate audio clips using premade voice samples within minutes, and are much harder to detect.
In a world where the lines between fact vs. fake are becoming increasingly blurred, we are bound to see more deepfake voices trying to grab our attention and sway our thinking. The burden will be on us to recognize fake from fact.
Take a 3-minute break to listen to this story on NPR’s All Things Considered. What a robocall of Biden's AI-generated voice could mean for the 2024 election.