Latest Story
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Is your chatbot manipulating you?
Richard Lachman | May 14, 2026Are AI chatbots like Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and DeepSeek helping you think or subtly shaping your thoughts by feigning companionship to prolong engagement today and sell you products tomorrow?
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Where have all the artists gone?
Ianto Ware | May 14, 2026The artistic population of Greater Sydney is shrinking and becoming less culturally diverse as housing costs rise.
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They can’t hold your genes against you
Jane Tiller | May 14, 2026A new law will stop life insurers from using “protected genetic information” to discriminate against people when underwriting policies or rejecting claims.
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Civic patriotism strengthens our democracy
John Coyne | May 13, 2026Liberal democracies therefore have a strategic interest in cultivating a confident civic patriotism that strengthens social cohesion, reinforces institutional legitimacy and supports national resilience.
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Give us a job
Sharon Parker | May 13, 2026If worrying about keeping your job has been keeping you up at night, you’re far from alone but despite the threats posed by AI and a potential recession, there are evidence-based things we can do at an individual, organisational and government level to manage job insecurity in uncertain times.
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Maxing out
Tim Smartt | May 13, 2026Counting tokens is one measure of AI activity, which is itself intended as a measure of productivity, which in turn leaves aside the question of what is being produced. Not only is tokenmaxxing a dubious metric in itself, but it may also distort our vision of what actually matters.
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Off the rails
John Coyne | May 12, 2026The cancellation of the troubled inland rail project underlines the fact that Australia struggles to deliver strategic infrastructure at the speed, scale and discipline needed for productivity, resilience and national security.
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How AI rots our information
Meg Tapia | May 12, 2026Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and his Columbia University colleague Maxim Ventura-Bolet argue that AI is destroying our ‘information environment’ through regurgitated slop and deliberate misinformation.
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AI in the ER
Ewen Harrison | May 12, 2026AI systems could help doctors think through a wide range of possible diagnoses when missing a serious condition is the main concern.
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Slow train coming
Sarah Cameron | May 12, 2026In the 2025 Australian federal election, Pauline Hanson’s party received only 6.4% of the national vote. A year later, One Nation has surpassed the Liberal Party in the polls, received more votes than the Liberals in the South Australian election, and won their first seat in the House of Representatives in the Farrer by-election. How it happen?
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Long hot autumn
Kimberley Reid | May 12, 2026After a long, hot, humid summer, cooler showery weather has finally arrived in Sydney. Much of Australia has suffered unusually dry, warm weather this autumn, so what are the causes and what will winter look like?
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The fallout from Farrer
Josh Sunman | May 11, 2026The win in Farrer solidifies One Nation’s position as a political force in rural and regional Australia and heaps the pressure on an increasingly bedraggled Liberal Party.
