@adrcullen
AI (security, privacy, HPC) Snr Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, researcher who rides bikes to go nowhere, and lifts heavy things for fun. Surprisingly interested in Iranian brickwork (just weird like that).
"“CSIRO’s climate science capability will be retained.”
However, some research areas will be reduced, to focus on “areas of greatest impact”."
Sounds like double speak - especially given the long history of cuts in CSIRO's climate and environment modeling capacity.
www.smh.com.au/environment/...
The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.
🧵 1/5
PhD students are just another element of the too hard basket - www.theage.com.au/politics/fed...
Family includes everyone! ❤️
The timing of the initial strikes is unusual.
Often you see these types of operations launched in the pre-dawn hours at the target site partly to limit civilian casualties.
This operation began at the beginning of a work and school day, with millions of adult civilians and children in harms way.
This should make your blood boil.
But coming from a small country town, it is not at all surprising.
Australian governance 101: build it now because you won't get the money again if you refuse it, punt upkeep to whoever is responsible down the road.
The point that concerns me is if investing in fixing CSIRO's facilities comes at the cost of funding actual people to do work. Yes, there's a lot of science that needs a lab, that needs equipment, but in the end science also needs people - the current trajectory is not promising there.
Found an additional graphic that gets even more of these quotes together.
I've kept "I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees" pinned above my desk since I first started studying evolutionary biology as an undergraduate. So relatable to get extremely frustrated with your study system.
His enemies were a credit to him
Comic of an underwater Parliament house, with submarines above. Speech bubble text: "Sure, we could have done more to prevent the ice caps melting, but luckily we spent the money on these submarines instead."
Vale Jon Kudelka - a brilliant artist who knew the power of comedy in holding truth to power, and effecting change.
His work showed a genuine and profound love for people and nature - often funny, often heartbreaking, but always incisive.
Australia has lost a great today.
Scene is Julia Gillard and Chris Bowen (then Min for Immigration) in a lighthouse with "Light on the Hill: written under the bulb. Gillard is turning the light off, saying 'It was attracting the boats"
I have many, many favourite Kudelka cartoons but this, from 2011, is possibly one of the best Aus pol cartoons ever drawn.
Very sad news about Jon Kudelka.
He wrote this last year about what really matters.
www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/life/2025/04...
Someone walking in the desert past Uluru and a big sign saying "Here is an No-Effort Zero-Risk Opportunity to be on the Right side of History" person says "no"
Here's a threat of Kudelka Gold
Vale to one of Australia's greatest cartoonists and artists - Jon Kudelka
Yeah I’m looking for my dog (girlfriend who has a restraining order against me and she has a dog) and here’s the picture of the dog (she walks this dog and I can use it to figure out her schedule) thanks for sending all footage my way
You know, it’s just possible to feel really bad about the violent deaths of Israeli Jews, the genocide in Palestine and the deaths of Australian Jews all while being neither anti-Semitic or Islamophobic.
Somehow that has become impossible for the political class.
Guardian Australia - Stem sector under unsustainable strain warns peak body. 47% of professionals considering leaving current roles due to workforce instability and low grant funding success rates.
-shocked pikachu face-
Funding rates through the floor. ARC programs turning into boondoggles (the changes to ARC grants, DP and DECRA results out after the next years are due). Much hyped programs being shuttered almost instantly (ASCA). Is there anything that feel like its trending the right way?
All the major model makers are doing the same - there's now a cottage industry of companies who connect people with knowledge with the AI training process. Definitely not unique to DeepSeek, or to the humanities - although DeepSeek may be spending relatively more on the humanities?
How should research communities act? While my feelings about the ethics of surveillance tech are strong, there's a need to ensure that harms are not just hand waved away, but are a core part of evaluation. This wouldn't fix problems like racial bias, but it would at least throw it into stark relief.
The number of times I've seen AI research that says "well, it could be used to harm, but also it'll provide benefit too" is shocking. The benefits often are the harm. And the harm is borne by people who have no agency in the use of the system.
Predictive algorithms in hiring, creditworthiness, and welfare programs are sold as objective and efficient, writes James O’Sullivan. In practice, however, they operationalize historical bias, scale discrimination, and launder political choices through opaque technical systems, he argues.
Only a casual 5000+ comment thread of two Gemini AI agents constantly doing and then undoing a task.
github.com/google-gemin...
There's definitely a fair number of AI researchers here on Bluesky - while there are some blinkered boosters, there's also a strong community of people here with a more balanced expertise and interest. If you're interested, feel free to reach out.
atrocious. How can anyone, but particularly ECRs who are often in insecure work, plan with this??
How's that even going to work with the 2x DP cap, given +1 yr on responses? Seems as well thought through as a paper raincoat.
ECR/MCR precarity is already ridiculous, but this is only going to make it worse. Genuinely have to wonder if it'd be easier for the ARC if we all just left research.
How's that even going to work with the 2x DP cap, given +1 yr on responses? Seems as well thought through as a paper raincoat.
ECR/MCR precarity is already ridiculous, but this is only going to make it worse. Genuinely have to wonder if it'd be easier for the ARC if we all just left research.
That's the idea behind openDP though - to provide a product that stops the need for companies to roll their own closed source. It's the same as crypto - roll your own, and you're guaranteed to create vulnerabilities. As to speed of adoption? Hopefully maturity fixes this. But it exists.
OpenDP to me holds some hope - even if there are flaws now (no idea if there are, I'm out of date with my DP implementation knowledge at the moment), but more due to their philosophy of implementation, focusing on probability and verifiability rather than SOTA.
