If I wanted my daughter to interact with a cursed automaton that misreads emotions and responds inappropriately, I’m right here
13.03.2026 12:41
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If I wanted my daughter to interact with a cursed automaton that misreads emotions and responds inappropriately, I’m right here
Incredibly bleak
Gen Z is reviving DVDs and Blu-rays, with local video rental shops reporting record months and membership numbers as young people embrace physical media.
Read more: www.latimes.com/entertainmen...
The more media mergers we see, the more copyright is doing the opposite of its intended purpose: instead of encouraging creativity, it’s discouraging it. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
“At Indiana University, where Erpelding worked until 2024, professors could track whether students watched films on the campus’s internal streaming platform. Fewer than 50 percent would even start the movies, he said, and only about 20 percent made it to the end.”
Rather disheartening statistics
Conviction not required (4) A person does not need to have been convicted of a hate crime in order for the AFP Minister to be satisfied an organisation has engaged in conduct of a kind mentioned in paragraph (1)(a). No procedural fairness required (5) The AFP Minister is not required to observe any requirements of procedural fairness in deciding whether or not the AFP Minister is satisfied for the purposes of this section.
Little note in the new Bill on Hate Speech
Good thing there will never be a Minister who acts in bad faith when they go about banning groups.
The list of most relevant themes we identified is: 1. Rhetoric of inevitability and technological determinism: presenting the adoption and use of (generative) AI as a fait accompli. 2. Exaggerated narratives: overstating the general capabilities of the technology, or leaving out that certain seemingly impressive capabilities can only be achieved under very specific experimental conditions. 3. Spurious comparison to human intelligence or Anthropomorphism: presenting AI as if it thinks or reason like a human. 4. Ethics and critical washing: presenting AI as being ethically or critically examined but doing so only superficially and inconsequentially. 5. Wishful thinking and uncertain feasibility: assuming desired outcomes or functionality despite lacking realistic evidence they can be achieved. 6. GenAI is presented as indispensable: portraying AI as essential even when simpler or non-AI solutions are sufficient. 7. Unrealistic and ill-defined conditions: formulating requirements for adoption and use that are functionally impossible or too demanding to be met, psychologically implausible to follow, or set unclear boundaries for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, which could easily create inconsistencies. 8. Resources as propaganda: resources for students, faculty, and other stakeholders are made available but only for incentivizing different degrees of use of genAI. 9. AI Overkill: Substitution or replacement of tasks for which the technology was not designed; from tutoring to teaching to research, everything must be now with AI, even if it is not adequate. Due to space limitations, rather than discussing all of the themes superficially, this essay addresses only the first four, which, in our view, are the most critical and the most urgently in need of critical scrutiny. T
For all those involved in drafting so-called AI guidelines, but being overwhelmed with nonsense, this is a lifesaver. Great work by Dagmar and Ariel!
Resisting Enchantment and Determinism: How to critically engage with AI university guidelines. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
I wrote about my experiences being sexually exploited as a child, and what we need to do to make sure AI doesn’t make that a reality for millions of children.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
I’m now in the process of booking in radio guests for 2026 for Einstein A Go Go on 3RRR.
Calling all researchers in Melbourne.
All fields welcome. PhD and ECRs very welcome. DM me if you are interested in an in person interview. Show broadcasts live Sunday mornings from
11-12.
cannot WAIT to see how this bizarre worksheet of celebrity disabilities is relevant to my disability awareness training next week
So many denials:
❌denial that MUP was pressured by the UniMelb Council chaired by Mark Leibler, after Meanjin published "an essay highly critical of the Exec Council of Australian Jewry"
❌denial that UniMelbCouncil was involved in the decision to close Meanjin
❌denial Council even discussed Meanjin
The Egg, a cricket trophy awarded to the winners of Overland vs Meanjin matches, alongside a copy of Jim Davidson's Emperor in Lilliput, the book about magazine founding editors Clem Christesen and Stephen Murray-Smith.
Since our very first issue Meanjin and Overland have been comrades, mates, rivals, and drinking buddies. The UMP board’s decision is a shockingly myopic act of cultural vandalism which will grievously harm the Australian literary community.
Melbourne Uni is killing the literary journal Meanjin. It's cultural vandalism. Australian universities are now deeply anti-intellectual places www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...
A screenshot from the transcript of the Movie Show review of 'The Replacements' from 2000
RIP the legendary David Stratton who not only was monitored by ASIO for suspected communist sympathies but also once gave a film - 'The Replacements' - zero stars because "It is a film which celebrates strike-breakers and scabs". Read the transcript here: letterboxd.com/margaret_dav...
lovely stuff
Vale David Stratton, the wonderful film critic.
I have seen a few mentions of Stratton’s surveillance by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which came to light about a decade ago.
His ASIO file has been digitised and can be viewed here: recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetri...
The front page of the All Things D.E.B.S. ezboard forum
Logging on to catch up on the latest news.
PSA: All of David Lynch's features have just dropped at archive dot org, including Industrial Symphony No 1, Hotel Room, and the Duran Duran concert
We are literally supposed to have fun like puppy dogs with our tails wagging. Jot that down.
wrote a farewell to my, our, beloved David Lynch: about getting "fix your hearts or die" tattooed, the legions of queer and trans art his work has since enabled, and losing his genius in part to the ecological decline caused by the human hubris his work obsessed over. @them.us
any billionaire buying Wikipedia would be a tragedy, "on the good side" or not. we need to stop divvying up all the important institutions along billionaires and then relying on their good graces — look how it's gone so far.
The image is from a "Transparency Center" document and lists guidelines regarding acceptable and prohibited content for insults. It mentions: 1. Insults about: Character, such as cowardice, dishonesty, criminality, and sexual promiscuity or immorality. Mental characteristics, including but not limited to accusations of stupidity, intellectual capacity, and mental illness, as well as unsupported comparisons among politically correct (PC) groups based on inherent intellectual traits. 2. Highlighted section: The document allows allegations of mental illness or abnormality when tied to gender or sexual orientation, referencing political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality. It also acknowledges the non-serious use of terms like "weird."
Meta literally created a LGBTQ exception for calling someone mentally ill as an insult. You can't do it for any other group except LGBTQ people.
"A study of federally funded research projects in the United States estimated that principal investigators spend on average about 45% of their time on administrative activities related to applying for and managing projects rather than conducting active research"
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
They're doing their best to keep it a secret, but @mitchmctaggart.bsky.social's 6th annual 'Last Year of Television' is out now on Binge.
The underlying assumption is that a person’s writing style is something to be divined only from what they’ve done in the past, rather than an evolving process that changes as you change as a person who experiences the world.
Nazis in ascendence on Substack? If it doesn't appear in my feed personally, I don't care. The REAL issue is people calling their posts "Substacks".
Pundit brain at its absolute mushiest from gr*ber.
