Artificial Intelligence

• OPINION

  30 years ago, AI became available in a kid’s video game – have we learned anything since then?

  Bill Browne

  Of course, the neural networks that ran on home computers and PlayStations thirty years ago were much smaller and therefore more limited than the Artificial Intelligence models we have today (about a hundred-million times smaller, in fact). But in a few key details, the Norns were more seemingly “alive” than today’s chatbots are.

  

  Artificial Intelligence

  

• PODCAST

  What’s the point of allowing AI to ruin superannuation? 

  Artificial Intelligence

  

  

• OPINION

  The cost of using AI is about to skyrocket, but do we have the appetite to pay?

  Thanh Hang Bui

  We have been gorging ourselves at an all-you-can-eat buffet, but the menu is about to change. AI tools that have been discounted will soon start charging based on your usage, raising serious questions about our appetite to pay.

  

  EconomyArtificial Intelligence

  

• WHAT'S NEW

  'Imagine siding with the tech bros': David Pocock calls for 5% levy on AI data centres

  By Tegan George

  Independent senator David Pocock has proposed a five per cent levy on data centres that he says would raise $500 million by the end of 2030.

  EconomyArtificial Intelligence

  

• WHAT'S NEW

  'Not an unintended consequence': Mass unemployment is the AI business model

  By Tegan George

  Prominent economist Dr Richard Denniss has warned a parliamentary inquiry that Australia is unprepared for the mass unemployment that AI companies are banking on to drive their profits.

  Society & InequalityArtificial Intelligence

  

• OPINION

  Governments dragged their feet on renewables to ‘save jobs’. Now they’re backing AI built to replace workers

  Richard Denniss

  Faced with a choice between saving the planet from climate change and saving some jobs in the gas and coal industries, successive governments have told us that jobs must come first. And then along comes so-called ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI).

  

  Society & InequalityArtificial Intelligence

  

• OPINION

  AI Select Committee: An exercise in scrutiny, or a corporate sales pitch?

  Darcie Newland

  Last week, the Australian Parliament’s Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence held public hearings with some of the world’s largest AI companies. But what followed felt less like parliamentary scrutiny and more like a corporate sales pitch with parliamentary stationery.

  

  Society & InequalityArtificial Intelligence

  

• OPINION

  When it comes to AI, it's not "training". It's assimilation

  Esther Anatolitis

  We’re hearing a great many troubling claims at this week’s public hearings of the parliamentary inquiry into AI, and no doubt there are plenty more to come. As we follow the proceedings, it’s vital that we stop humanising AI like Big Tech does.

  

  Society & InequalityArtificial Intelligence

  

• OPINION

  Woodside can't sell Browse gas, so now it's selling AI data centres

  Louise Morris

  When a gas project can't win on the facts, it goes shopping for a new story. Last week, Woodside's CEO Liz Westcott told a Perth business breakfast that the proposed Browse gas and CCS project could power AI data centres and keep AUKUS shipyards humming. The same project was once sold to keep the lights on in WA. 

  

  ClimateArtificial Intelligence

  

• OPINION

  Could industrial AI be the answer to Australia’s productivity problem?

  Roy Green & John H Howard

  The transformative opportunities for “middle power” economies may instead lie in the application of AI to physical products and systems as a basis for new forms of competitive, high value manufacturing. This is being termed “industrial AI”, and it provides a mechanism for addressing Australia’s productivity slowdown.

  EconomyArtificial Intelligence