AI not OK? | On radio rantings | Sunday is Men’s Day | No rein on barracks cost
A mistrust of AI has come through loud and clear in a recent Roy Morgan poll, including a belief the bots will exterminate humankind.
The bots are taking over
A Roy Morgan SMS Survey of 1,481 Australians aged 16+ conducted with the Campaign for AI Safety shows a sizeable majority of 57 per cent of Australians believe artificial intelligence (AI) creates more problems than it solves.
And one in five Australians – mainly Tasmanians for some reason – believe AI presents a risk of human extinction in the next twenty years.
Regarding human extinction, the breakdown of worried people is fairly consistent across different demographics but respondents aged 50-64 (25 per cent) and respondents in Tasmania (37 per cent) were most concerned.
When in doubt, blame the woman
The ABC’s local radio stations around the country have falling audiences, but let’s hope they don’t listen to Adelaide’s bevy of anonymous “industry insiders” for advice on how to turn the ship around.
On the weekend, The Advertiser made an attempt to diagnose what’s “wrong” with ABC Radio Adelaide, via these courageously closeted “insiders”.
They believe the ABC is too lefty and opinionated and its breakfast program – hosted by Nikolai Beilharz and Stacey Lee – is the root cause of its rating problems.
This ignores the fact that the breakfast program is the highest-rating show on the station – indeed, it is the highest-rating ABC breakfast program anywhere in the country.
One of the anonymous apparatchiks believes the ABC’s presenters need to “urgently re-evaluate their on-air style”.
Only one presenter, though, is mentioned in specific negative terms.
“I think it’s a good show but they need to understand that radio is so different to television, where Stacey has come from,” the insider said.
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“You don’t need to be the attack dog. Be measured, don’t be forceful. Be a great interviewer, allowing people to communicate their side of the story and not just take the soapbox and cut them down because that’s your opinion.”
Can you imagine our bravely bashful insiders saying the same thing about David Penberthy or Will Goodings over at FIVEaa (the station, incidentally, owned by the Tiser’s boss Lachlan Murdoch)? Or arguing that FIVEaa’s fading Drive show is struggling because Rowey is too opinionated?
InSider’s view: the ABC has serious problems with its local stations, but Lee relentlessly holding those in authority to account, in the tradition of the best ABC presenters and journalists, isn’t one of them.
And one for the men
Notable journalists received invites through LinkedIn yesterday to International Men’s Day at the Norwood Football Club in November.
The event is hosted by the One Nation MLC Sarah Game who is an “advocate for Men’s Wellbeing and a Minister & Office for Men, like we have for women”.
The $65 lunch and drinks package includes speakers ranging from footballer Chris McDermott to entrepreneur Jim Whalley.
Game says it’s the only local event celebrating International Men’s Day.
Before RSVPing, InSider had to query if the day fell on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Turns out it’s Sunday.
Don’t ghost us, Qatar
Qatar Airways may heed Premier Peter Malinauskas’ call for more direct international flights to Adelaide – but they might ghost him as well.
As one travel writer pointed out to InSider yesterday, Qatar Airways has reportedly been running “ghost flights” – empty or near empty flights – between Melbourne and Adelaide as a workaround to laws (and federal transport ministers) that limit the number of international flights it can operate into major Australian airports.
Guardian Australia published an investigation on the issue last month, reporting that Qatar flies from Doha to Melbourne but registers Adelaide as its final destination and departure point, meaning the airline does not exceed its 28 weekly services limit for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
Naturally, the majority of passengers disembark in Melbourne with only a few – sometimes none – left to fly the remaining leg to Adelaide, the Guardian reported.
“The airline is not permitted to sell tickets on the leg between Melbourne and Adelaide to domestic passengers under Australia’s aviation laws,” the Guardian reported.
“It can only carry the few international passengers booked through to Doha who have chosen the two-legged route instead of the separate daily non-stop flight between Adelaide and Doha that Qatar Airways also operates.”
Qatar’s Melbourne-Adelaide leg, run with a 354-seat Boeing 777, averages “in the single digits” for passenger numbers, the Guardian reported, citing its own analysis of government flight data and sources with knowledge of the flights.
“This flight sometimes carries no passengers at all.”
South Australia: the workaround state?
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Pollie spotting at train station
Train commuters bumped into a visiting federal Liberal MP at the Adelaide train station this morning.
Julian Leeser was handing out flyers for the “yes” campaign backing the Voice to parliament – the New South Wales MP hoping to elicit more positive responses from public transport commuters than his own parliamentary colleagues.
The former Opposition Attorney-General and Indigenous Australians spokesperson resigned from the roles when his Liberal team formally resolved to oppose the referendum.
Make it 16
Seems the campaign led by Adelaide teenager Archie Coppola to lower the voting age is gaining traction.
New research, commissioned by the Body Shop, has found that two-thirds of Aussies now want to discuss lowering the voting age in Australia to 16, in the first pulse-check of the nation’s sentiment following the launch of the Make it 16 campaign in June.
The Body Shop findings also showed that:
- Young Aussies are leading the charge to lower the voting age:
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- Over seven in ten 18-34 year olds (74%) are open to discussion about lowering the voting age
- Over a third (34%) of 18-24 year olds agree that young Aussies pay tax and have adult responsibilities, so should be able to have a say
- Over a third of all Aussies say they could be convinced to support the motion with more education and information.
The Body Shop has pledged $50K to the campaign, is supporting the petition in its stores and providing education to customers – right next to the bath bombs.
New barracks search no horse feed
SA Police’s politically fraught search for a new police horse barracks is racking up costs on multiple fronts.
In a recent written response to questions on notice from parliament’s budget and finance committee, Police Commissioner Grant Stevens advised that “interim costs” for Thebarton barracks relocation “activities” reached $1.6m by June 30, 2023.
Police have also, as of July 28, spent $6,899.31 on Crown Law advice to keep documents about those activities away from the public eye in a legal battle with former senator Rex Patrick.
The Malinauskas Government gave SA Police $2m last year to plan its exit from Thebarton.
They then nominated a controversial park lands site, but blowback saw the government instead chose airport land later deemed unsuitable due to PFAS contamination, forcing a switch to a third site – the $90m Gepps Cross option.
Asked on ABC Radio Adelaide this week about the latest site, Commissioner Stevens said bluntly: “This is not what we asked for, but this is what we now have to work with.”
“I have to say the staff have been excellent right through this – this is a really difficult time for them.
“We’ve been doing the same thing the same way from the same location for decades.
“So this is a real step change for us and it does impact on people, so I have to take my hat off to the staff that notwithstanding the difficulties, they are being constructive.”
SA Police’s $1.6m “activities” tab does not include costs incurred by the Transport Department investigating PFAS contamination on the scrapped airport site, according to the commissioner’s advice to the committee.
Stuff you should now…
It’s hard to imagine a time when there wasn’t a Bunnings dominating every suburb of Adelaide, but thanks to r/AustralianNostalgia on Reddit for pointing out it was 30 years ago that what was then a WA chain came to SA. It’s also interesting to note the prices aren’t all that different. No wonder it drove the corner hardware shops into oblivion.
"30 Years Ago in this month, Bunnings came to our state!
by u/RS-1990 in Adelaide"
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