Reimagining Humanity in the Age of Generative AI

Despite its amazing advancements, generative AI raises substantial concerns. With its roots deep in Western data, could GAI inadvertently become a tool of digital colonisation? Trained mostly on data that is influenced by Western perspectives, there’s a risk of AI systems acting like digital colonisers, spreading a uniform cultural narrative across diverse global landscapes.

The Future of AI in the Workplace

AI applications are revolutionising the way we create. But these creations rely on ideas conceived by humans who are not always given appropriate credit. It is likely that generative AI systems will soon only be allowed to be trained on work in the public domain or under licences, which will affect everyone who integrates generative AI into their work.

Scaling Australian Manufacturing through Digital Platforms

Industry 4.0 is the next industrial revolution, utilising digitalisation to create a smarter, self-correcting manufacturing processes. Bringing this new industrial age together with science is Professor Bronwyn Fox, winner of the 2020 Medal for Excellence in Scientific Research. Her journey with carbon fibre production saw the develop a more efficient fabrications process for composite materials, and also had her involved with Quickstep and their new composite material process. At the time a small start-up, Quickstep is now the largest Australian independent manufacturer of composite materials, and Bronwyn took this entrepreneurial mindset and founded Deakin University’s Carbon Nexus facility. Professor Bronwyn Fox continued her research into renewable carbon fibre and established yet another facility – the National Industry 4.0 Testlab – which focuses on 3D printing of composite materials.

State of the Climate 2020

Senior Climatologist Dr Lynette Bettio explains that soon we will no longer be considering how we get through a single intense year, such as 2019, but how we can make it through a stretch of years with no respite. The climate has been set on a warming path – the long-lived greenhouse gasses that are in the atmosphere and the extra energy soaked up by oceans have secured the warming trend continuing for the next few decades. So the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO are investing a lot of effort to solve these problems, knowing the sooner we take action, the sooner we will see a divergence from the alarming projections in current climate models and simulations.

Position Statement: Climate Research & Application is Big Business

The recent announcement by CSIRO of a plan to substantially reduce its research into Australia’s climate and its future prognosis is puzzling, and cause for concern.