Category: Opinion

Meeting technology head on – how event planners are upskilling

Event planners and marketers have joined the digital skills revolution in the past few years. As virtual events become more and more popular, and platforms...

Virtual reality – leveraging the transition from in-person to hybrid events

Spare a thought for event marketers and planners as we move into a modern event landscape. In the past few years, they have had to...

e-X’it Twitter – A Cautionary Tale

Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, the platform has seen a whirlwind of changes, culminating in the radical decision to rebrand it as ‘X‘....

Prosecraft has infuriated authors by using their books without consent – but what does copyright law say?

This week, US writer Benji Smith took down his controversial website, Prosecraft, roughly a day after a social media storm erupted, with authors – who...

Foreign interference through social media is an active threat. Here’s what Australia can do

Last week, a special Senate committee released a report on foreign interference through social media. It makes for scary reading. In addition to widely publicised...

Authors are resisting AI with petitions and lawsuits. But they have an advantage: we read to form relationships with writers

The first waves of AI-generated text have writers and publishers reeling. In the United States last week, the Authors Guild submitted an open letter to...

Do rebrands work? Can you trademark an X? An expert answers the burning questions on Musk’s Twitter pivot

To non-moguls, Elon Musk’s (perhaps temporary) rebrand of Twitter to “X” may seem high risk, amateurish, or even capricious. But it is likely doing exactly...

Computer-written scripts and deepfake actors: what’s at the heart of the Hollywood strikes against generative AI

For the first time in 60 years, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) are simultaneously facing off against the...

Australia may ban WeChat – but for many Chinese Australians, it’s their ‘lifeline’

One morning in February 2021, I was woken by a WeChat call from my brother in China. Mum had died the previous night, he told...

ChatGPT took people by surprise – here are 4 technologies that could make a difference next

In the evolving relationship between technology and society, humans have shown themselves to be incredibly adaptable. What once left us breathless, soon becomes integrated into...

More stick, less carrot: Australia’s new approach to tackling fake news on digital platforms

An urgent problem for governments around the world in the digital age is how to tackle the harms caused by mis- and disinformation, and Australia...

Why is it legal to tell lies during the Voice referendum campaign?

A referendum to recognise First Nations Australians in Australia’s Constitution by establishing a Voice to Parliament will be held later this year. The Voice would...

Meta’s Threads is a serious threat to Twitter, and Elon Musk knows it

Given Elon Musk’s penchant for publicising his thoughts on Twitter (a social media platform that he now owns), many found his silence on the release...

If AI image generators are so smart, why do they struggle to write and count?

Generative AI tools such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and DALL-E 2 have astounded us with their ability to produce remarkable images in a matter of...

‘A study buddy’ that raises ‘serious questions’: how uni students approached AI in their first semester with ChatGPT

When ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November last year, there was intense speculation about the implications of this technology for university teaching and learning....

A reciprocating engine of money, power and influence: how Australia’s ‘media monsters’ used journalism to cement their empires

Carl Sagan said that in order to understand the present, it’s necessary to know the past. Nowhere does this apply with greater force than to...

Taking matters into your own hands: Advice for businesses looking to run a voluntary scheme

Innovation fuels the world’s most prominent economies, with brilliant ideas thriving on speed, agility, and adaptability. Unfortunately, there’s a rather large obstacle that can often...

Worried about AI? You might have AI-nxiety – here’s how to cope

Even tech experts have been astonished by the recent, rapid growth of AI technology, able to hold human-like conversations in multiple languages, create music and...

Both humans and AI hallucinate — but not in the same way

The launch of ever-capable large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5 has sparked much interest over the past six months. However, trust in these models...

How should Australia capitalise on AI while reducing its risks? It’s time to have your say

Toby Walsh, UNSW Sydney The world missed the boat with social media. It fuelled misinformation, fake news, and polarisation. We saw the harms too late,...