Keywords: Artificial Intelligence
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Jamie Wigley
- 09 August 2022
1 Comment
To many who work in the arts industry, the rise of art-making artificial intelligence may pose an eventual threat to their livelihoods. Will independent artists be replaced by corporations using AI to generate mass entertainment?
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INTERNATIONAL
- Julian Butler
- 05 July 2022
3 Comments
Just over a fortnight ago Google suspended Blake Lemoine, an engineer for Google’s AI organisation, for publicly claiming a computer chatbot he was working on is sentient and thinks and reasons like a human. The publicity surrounding the suspension has raised questions about the development of artificial intelligence (AI), about our shared understanding of what it means to be conscious and sentient.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 31 January 2022
5 Comments
There is a great deal of commentary about the growing importance of artificial intelligence, or AI, especially in business circles. To some extent this is a self-fulfilling prophecy — if people think something will have a seminal effect then it probably will. But if the supposed commercial benefits are significant, the dangers are potentially enormous.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Barry Gittins
- 14 January 2022
4 Comments
We’ve been in a pressure cooker, these past two years. More than a score of historians had memorably described 2020 as the sixth-most ‘stressful year ever’. Predictions and speculations look ahead; I looked at the past trends of the past two years and make these humble observations. With the stage set for dire times, here are six trends to look for in 2022. Here’s hoping.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tim Dunlop
- 26 October 2021
2 Comments
We are in the midst of what is being called the ‘the Great Resignation’, with millions of workers rethinking the place of work in their lives, and WFH is a huge part of this. According to a report by Microsoft, ‘over 40 per cent of the global workforce [is] considering leaving their employer this year’ and hybrid work — a combination of home and office work — is here to stay.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 22 July 2021
13 Comments
The late Donald Rumsfeld, twice US Secretary of Defense, a Fortune 500 CEO, and congressman for three terms, did not let evidence and the firmness of facts trouble him. If he had a cause to pursue he would. Morality was merely an impediment to service.
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AUSTRALIA
The debate about the future of work, and therefore UBI, was hijacked by a reductive media narrative around ‘the robot question’ and this has made it hard to recognise the complex nature of the changes underway.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 09 March 2021
5 Comments
Social media companies are adopting a strategy that may go down in history as among the worst corporate mistakes ever. Google and Facebook are now monopolies and, like all monopolies, they no longer see their main interest as serving customers but rather to capture governments in order to protect their market dominance.
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ECONOMICS
The full economic impact of the coronavirus lockdowns will not be fully felt until the end of the year, but it will be devastating. The Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, is already estimating that the effective employment rate is 13.3 per cent; it may be headed for as high as 20 per cent. It raises a question, not just in Australia, but in many developed countries. Will there be a significant middle class left after such economic destruction?
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ECONOMICS
A commonly heard phrase, or rather media cliché, is that after the COVID-19 crisis ‘things will never be the same.’ It is an understandable sentiment, given the seemingly unprecedented nature of recent events. But how novel is what happened, and how much will actually change?
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MEDIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 16 June 2020
5 Comments
When a distinguished journal is caught unawares in its editorial judgment, others will cheer at the burning house. The academic business is a tough one, and at its core is an exaggerated virtue that often conceals core defects.
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MEDIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 03 April 2019
5 Comments
The thrust of the Morrison government's changes is one of heavy handed and forced deferral, outsourcing government policing by vesting it in social media platforms. Israel's Cyber Unit, by way of contrast, has been seeking the same object via more subtle means, collaborating with Facebook and YouTube to remove errant posts and content.
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