Last week, Science and Industry Minister Ed Husic announced with little fanfare that the position of Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador would be discontinued, effective three days later. The role was created in October 2018 “to encourage girls and women to study and work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields”. Astrophysicist Lisa Harvey-Smith… Read more »
Entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of any innovative economy. New business creation has been shown to have a significant and positive impact on economic growth, innovation and job creation. But it isn’t easy, and most new businesses fail. When someone starts a business, they usually aren’t doing it alone – their whole family forms part of… Read more »
If you search “shrimp Jesus” on Facebook, you might encounter dozens of images of artificial intelligence (AI) generated crustaceans meshed in various forms with a stereotypical image of Jesus Christ. Some of these hyper-realistic images have garnered more than 20,000 likes and comments. So what exactly is going on here? The “dead internet theory” has… Read more »
Last week OpenAI launched GPT-4o (“o” for “omni”), a new version of the artificial intelligence (AI) system powering the popular ChatGPT chatbot. GPT-4o is promoted as a step towards more natural engagement with AI. According to the demonstration video, it can have voice conversations with users in near real-time, exhibiting human-like personality and behaviour. This… Read more »
This year’s federal budget is making up for decades of lost time – both in our clean energy transition and in betting on new technological breakthroughs. The Future Made in Australia Act holds tantalising potential for building Australian science, research and development. The aim is to turn Australia into an innovation and clean technology superpower.… Read more »
Artificial intelligence (AI) text and image generation tools have now been around for a while, but in recent weeks, apps for making AI-generated music have reached consumers as well. Just like other generative AI tools, the two products – Suno and Udio (and others likely to come) – work by turning a user’s prompt into… Read more »
It’s been seven years since the launch of Replika, an artificially intelligent chatbot designed to be a friend to human users. Despite early warnings about the dangers of such AI friends, interest in friendships and even romantic relationships with AI is on the rise. The Google Play store shows more than 30 million total downloads… Read more »
The Victorian budget offered more of the same on Tuesday, with the only change being how the budget papers were packaged. The usual shrink wrap was gone, hinting at savings in the pages within. But that was not to be, for the government – which has the largest debt of all the states and territories… Read more »
You might have seen viral videos of Wendy’s drive-thru customers in the United States ordering their fast food from the firm’s generative AI bot Wendy’s FreshAI. Most show a very human-like transaction punctuated with cries of amazement at how fast, accurate and polite the system is. While the system and others like it are in… Read more »
People have a pretty intuitive sense of what is healthy – standing is better than sitting, exercise is great for overall health and getting good sleep is imperative. However, if exercise in the evening may disrupt our sleep, or make us feel the need to be more sedentary to recover, a key question emerges –… Read more »
Sexual harassment is often considered to be a person-to-person act, but new research shows Australians are also experiencing and perpetrating workplace harassment in large numbers through technology. Our latest study shows one in seven Australian adults surveyed reported having engaged in workplace tech-based sexual harassment. One in eight reported having engaged in both tech-based and… Read more »
In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk last week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to being told to take down from X (previously Twitter) the video of the stabbing of bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel at a… Read more »
Do Australian courts have the right to decide what foreign citizens, located overseas, view online on a foreign-owned platform? Anyone inclined to answer “yes” to this question should perhaps also ask themselves whether they are equally happy for courts in China, Russia and Iran to determine what Australians can see and post online in Australia.… Read more »
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has ordered social media platform “X” (formerly known as Twitter) to remove graphic videos of the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in Sydney last week from the site. The incident was captured on the church’s livestreamed mass service. In response to this order, X’s owner, Elon Musk, has branded the commissioner… Read more »
Earlier this year, Neuralink implanted a chipinside the brain of 29-year-old US man Noland Arbaugh, who is paralysed from the shoulders down. The chip has enabled Arbaugh to move a mouse pointer on a screen just by imagining it moving. In May 2023, US researchers also announced a non-invasive way to “decode” the words someone… Read more »
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