ADM+S members present evidence for the Inquiry into Workplace Surveillance

ADM+S members present evidence for the Inquiry into Workplace Surveillance

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 8 November 2024

On 1 November 2024 ADM+S members Dr Jake Goldenfein and Lauren Kelly presented evidence to the Victorian Legislative Assembly Economy and Infrastructure Committee for the final hearing of the Inquiry into Workplace Surveillance.

The Inquiry was established in May 2024 to examine the extent to which surveillance data is being collected, shared, stored, disclosed, sold, disposed of and otherwise utilised in Victorian workplaces.

ADM+S Chief Investigator Dr Jake Goldenfein from the University of Melbourne presented evidence on behalf of ADM+S and as a co-author on the NTEU submission that made three key recommendations:

Recommendation 1: The Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner audits Victorian universities for their compliance with the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2018 (Vic) to be adequately resourced for this purpose.

Recommendation 2: The Victorian Parliament enacts a statute dedicated to regulating workplace surveillance.

Recommendation 3: The statute in Recommendation 2 be based on six Workplace Privacy Principles

  1. Comprehensiveness
  2. Transparency
  3. Freedom of association and the centrality of trade unions
  4. Legitimate purpose and proportionality
  5. Governance and accountability
  6. Effective compliance and enforcement

Dr Goldenfein said, “The commissioners were deeply concerned about the range of harms that surveillance causes to workers and Victoria’s inadequate regulatory regime.”

ADM+S PhD Student Lauren Kelly from RMIT University also spoke to the Committee, as an author on the United Workers Union submission, which highlighted case studies of workplace surveillance from secretive to biometric, working from home surveillance to medical surveillance, and more, demonstrating both beneficial and unacceptable uses.

The Committee’s final report, including findings and recommendations, will be tabled in parliament in 2025.

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Elon Musk’s flood of US election tweets may look chaotic. My data reveals an alarming strategy

Getty: Samuel Corum / Stringer

Elon Musk’s flood of US election tweets may look chaotic. My data reveals an alarming strategy

Author Timothy Graham
Date 6 November 2024

As voting booths in the United States close and the results of the presidential election trickle in, tech billionaire Elon Musk has been posting a flurry of tweets on his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter). So too has Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

At first glance these tweets might appear chaotic and random. But if you take a closer look, you start to see an alarming strategy behind them – one that’s worth paying very close attention to in order to understand the inner workings of the campaign to return Trump to the White House.

The strategy has two immediate aims. First, to overwhelm the information space and thereby manage attention. Second, to fuel the conspiracy theory that there is a coordinated campaign among Democrats, the media and big tech to steal this election.

But it’s important to understand that the strategy on X is part of a master strategy of Trump’s campaign: a backup plan in case of a Trump loss, designed to encourage the public to participate in a grand re-wiring of reality via the meta-narrative of widespread voter fraud.

Overwhelm the information space

Musk has long been a prominent user of X, even before he became the owner, chief technology officer and executive chairman of the platform.

But as I reported last week, since he endorsed Trump in July, engagement with his account has seen a sudden and anomalously large increase, raising suspicions as to whether he has tweaked the platform’s algorithms so his content reaches more people.

This trend has continued in recent days.

As well as posting on X, earlier today Musk also held a “freeform” live discussionon the platform about the election. It lasted for nearly one and a half hours. Around 1.3 million people tuned in. This is one of many live discussions he has hosted about the election over the past months, including notably with Trump.

In an information war, everything is about attention management. Platforms are designed to maximise engagement and user attention above and beyond anything else. This core logic of social media is highly exploitable: who controls attention controls the narrative. In Australia, the “Vote No” campaign during last year’s referendum on Indigenous representation in government was a masterclass in attention management.

By bombarding audiences, journalists, and other key stakeholders with a constant supply of allegations, rumours, conspiracy theories and unverifiable claims, Musk and the Trump campaign eat up all the oxygen of attention. When everyone is focussed on you and what you’re saying, they are distracted from what the other side is saying.

And Musk and Trump want people to focus on the idea that the election is going to be stolen.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk (right) has been a pivotal figure in the campaign to return former president Donald Trump to the White House. Evan Vucci/AP

Fuel the election fraud narrative

From the beginning of the year, the narrative that the US presidential election is at risk of being defrauded has been steadily gaining steam. But in the past week leading up to election day, it has gone gangbusters.

For example, starting on October 27, Trump started posting on X using the #TooBigtoRig hashtag. This refers to the idea that Trump will win the election by such a large margin that the result will be incontestable. Up to this point, the #TooBigToRig campaign was driven by Trump supporters. Now, Trump has officially joined – giving it the ultimate legitimacy.

There has also been a dramatic spike over the last week in posts using similarly themed hashtags such as #ElectionFraud, #ElectionInterference, #VoterFraud and #StopTheSteal.

Musk himself hasn’t been using these hashtags very much (although replies to him from other users are riddled with them). But he has been posting material that aligns with them. For example, earlier today he retweeted a post which claimed the electronic voting system in the US was insecure. Musk added: “Absolutely”.

He has also falsely accused Google of encouraging Americans to vote for Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

And as some early results have started trickling in, Musk has posted about Trump’s odds of winning being nearly 70%.

“The prophecy has been fulfilled,” Musk wrote.

Participatory disinformation

In many ways this has all the hallmarks of participatory disinformation. This concept, developed by computer scientist Kate Starbird and colleagues, explains how both ordinary people as well as politicians and influential actors become active participants in spreading false narratives.

Unlike the top-down model of propaganda, participatory disinformation describes how grassroots activists and regular people – often with strong convictions and genuine intentions – contribute to spreading and evolving narratives that are not grounded in facts. It is a collaborative feedback loop involving both elite framing of issues and collective sensemaking and “evidence” gathering.

Before war breaks out, there are clear signs of what’s about to unfold, even if a country publicly denies they are preparing for battle. Blood supplies, troops and weaponry are transported to the border in preparation for an invasion.

The same thing is at play here, except the weapon is us.

The flood of tweets by Musk and Trump, in particular, is setting the stage for a full-blown participatory disinformation campaign to undermine the election results.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s social media posts have had a ‘sudden boost’ since July, new research reveals

Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s social media posts have had a ‘sudden boost’ since July, new research reveals

Author Mark Andrejevic and Timothy Graham
Date 1 November 2024

On July 13, shortly after Donald Trump was targeted by an assassination attempt, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter), tweeted to his more than 200 million followers:

“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

Musk’s efforts to influence who wins next week’s US presidential election have continued. For example, over the past three months, he has donated more than US$100 million to a political action committee called America PAC that’s promoting Trump.

But our new research (currently available in preprint form) indicates Musk may be wielding influence in other more subtle ways as well. However, the platform’s increasing opacity to researchers makes this difficult to say for certain.

This raises suspicions as to whether Musk has tweaked the platform’s algorithm to increase the reach of his posts in advance of the US presidential election. It also demonstrates the problems with how social media platforms like X are currently regulated around the world.

Not the first time

Musk has history when it comes to tweaking X’s algorithms so his own content reaches more people.

Last year, he reportedly mobilised a team of around 80 engineers to algorithmically boost his posts. This came after his tweet supporting the Philadelphia Eagles during the Super Bowl was outperformed by a similar one from President Joe Biden. Musk seemed to confirm this happened, posting a picture depicting one woman labelled “Elon’s tweets” forcibly bottle feeding another woman labelled “Twitter”.

To see whether Musk has done this again in the leadup to the US election, we compared Musk’s engagement metrics – such as the number of views, retweets and likes – with a set of other prominent political accounts on the social media platform. The data spans the period from January 1 2024 to October 25 2024.

Other political accounts that served as a basis of comparison include those of right-wing commentators Jack Posobiec, Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. Our study also examined accounts at the other end of the political spectrum, including those of US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, US Senator Bernie Sanders and Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Shortly after Musk endorsed Trump’s presidential campaign, there was a statistically anomalous boost in engagement with his X account. Suddenly, his posts were getting much higher views, retweets and likes in comparison to other prominent political accounts on the platform.

A sudden and significant increase

Since July, engagement with Musk’s X account has seen a sudden and significant increase.

The view counts for his posts increased by 138%, retweets by 238%, and likes by 186%.

In contrast, other prominent political accounts on X saw more moderate increases: 57% in view counts, 152% in retweets, and 130% in likes.

This suggests that while engagement went up for all accounts after July, Musk’s metrics saw a particularly large boost, particularly in retweets and likes.

The myth of neutrality

The findings raise the question of the extent to which Musk’s influential social media platform is reinforcing its owner’s political agenda.

Musk, whose businesses have extensive government contracts, has made a public and financial spectacle of his unabashed support of Trump. The billionaire tech tycoon is reportedly Trump’s second-biggest financial donor. He also promoted Trump in a glitchy live interview on X and authored a stream of tweets promoting Trump’s campaign.

Musk is also handing out $1 million a day to selected registered voters. This plan (which has met with questions over its legality) apparently aims to boost voter registration among sympathisers in swing states.

Musk’s actions have torpedoed the fantasy that social media platforms such as X are neutral. Given he has previously tweaked X’s algorithm to amplify the reach of his posts, it would be surprising if he were not tilting the platform in favour of Trump, whom he believes is “the path to prosperity”.

For too long, social media platforms have enjoyed immunity for the information they selectively inject into users’ feeds. It’s time for governments to reconsider their approach to regulating the oligopolistic power over our information environment wielded by a handful of tech billionaires.

The research further found that since July, other conservative and right-wing X accounts have performed better in terms of visibility of posts compared to progressive and left-wing accounts.

The Conversation sought comment from X about the research, but did not receive a reply before deadline.

Without backstage access to the workings of the company, it is impossible to know for sure whether changes to its curation system are boosting its owner’s posts. The platform has limited the access it provides to researchers since Musk took over. This means there are restrictions on the amount of data we were able to collect for this study.

However, the Washington Post recently found that tweets from Republicans are far more likely to go viral, receiving billions more views than those from Democrats. Similarly, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed that new users to the platform “are being blanketed with political content” that disproportionately favours Trump.

Since Musk’s purchase of the platform, it has become more congenial to figures on the right, including people who were previously banned for spreading harmful and false information.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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What is AI superintelligence? Could it destroy humanity? And is it really almost here?

What is AI superintelligence? Could it destroy humanity? And is it really almost here?

Author Flora Salim
Date 29 October 2024

In 2014, the British philosopher Nick Bostrom published a book about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) with the ominous title Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. It proved highly influential in promoting the idea that advanced AI systems – “superintelligences” more capable than humans – might one day take over the world and destroy humanity.

A decade later, OpenAI boss Sam Altman says superintelligence may only be “a few thousand days” away. A year ago, Altman’s OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever set up a team within the company to focus on “safe superintelligence”, but he and his team have now raised a billion dollars to create a startup of their own to pursue this goal.

What exactly are they talking about? Broadly speaking, superintelligence is anything more intelligent than humans. But unpacking what that might mean in practice can get a bit tricky.

Different kinds of AI

In my view the most useful way to think about different levels and kinds of intelligence in AI was developed by US computer scientist Meredith Ringel Morris and her colleagues at Google.

Their framework lists six levels of AI performance: no AI, emerging, competent, expert, virtuoso and superhuman. It also makes an important distinction between narrow systems, which can carry out a small range of tasks, and more general systems.

A narrow, no-AI system is something like a calculator. It carries out various mathematical tasks according to a set of explicitly programmed rules.

There are already plenty of very successful narrow AI systems. Morris gives the Deep Blue chess program that famously defeated world champion Garry Kasparov way back in 1997 as an example of a virtuoso-level narrow AI system.

Levels of AI

Some narrow systems even have superhuman capabilities. One example is Alphafold, which uses machine learning to predict the structure of protein molecules, and whose creators won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year.

What about general systems? This is software that can tackle a much wider range of tasks, including things like learning new skills.

A general no-AI system might be something like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: it can do a wide range of things, but it does them by asking real people.

Overall, general AI systems are far less advanced than their narrow cousins. According to Morris, the state-of-the-art language models behind chatbots such as ChatGPT are general AI – but they are so far at the “emerging” level (meaning they are “equal to or somewhat better than an unskilled human”), and yet to reach “competent” (as good as 50% of skilled adults).

So by this reckoning, we are still some distance from general superintelligence.

How intelligent is AI right now?

As Morris points out, precisely determining where any given system sits would depend on having reliable tests or benchmarks.

Depending on our benchmarks, an image-generating system such as DALL-E might be at virtuoso level (because it can produce images 99% of humans could not draw or paint), or it might be emerging (because it produces errors no human would, such as mutant hands and impossible objects).

There is significant debate even about the capabilities of current systems. One notable 2023 paper argued GPT-4 showed “sparks of artificial general intelligence”.

OpenAI says its latest language model, o1, can “perform complex reasoning” and “rivals the performance of human experts” on many benchmarks.

However, a recent paper from Apple researchers found o1 and many other language models have significant trouble solving genuine mathematical reasoning problems. Their experiments show the outputs of these models seem to resemble sophisticated pattern-matching rather than true advanced reasoning. This indicates superintelligence is not as imminent as many have suggested.

Will AI keep getting smarter?

Some people think the rapid pace of AI progress over the past few years will continue or even accelerate. Tech companies are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in AI hardware and capabilities, so this doesn’t seem impossible.

If this happens, we may indeed see general superintelligence within the “few thousand days” proposed by Sam Altman (that’s a decade or so in less scifi terms). Sutskever and his team mentioned a similar timeframe in their superalignment article.

Many recent successes in AI have come from the application of a technique called “deep learning”, which, in simplistic terms, finds associative patterns in gigantic collections of data. Indeed, this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Hopfield and also the “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, for their invention of Hopfield Networks and Boltzmann machine, which are the foundation for many powerful deep learning models used today.

General systems such as ChatGPT have relied on data generated by humans, much of it in the form of text from books and websites. Improvements in their capabilities have largely come from increasing the scale of the systems and the amount of data on which they are trained.

However, there may not be enough human-generated data to take this process much further (although efforts to use data more efficiently, generate synthetic data, and improve transfer of skills between different domains may bring improvements). Even if there were enough data, some researchers say language models such as ChatGPT are fundamentally incapable of reaching what Morris would call general competence.

One recent paper has suggested an essential feature of superintelligence would be open-endedness, at least from a human perspective. It would need to be able to continuously generate outputs that a human observer would regard as novel and be able to learn from.

Existing foundation models are not trained in an open-ended way, and existing open-ended systems are quite narrow. This paper also highlights how either novelty or learnability alone is not enough. A new type of open-ended foundation model is needed to achieve superintelligence.

What are the risks?

So what does all this mean for the risks of AI? In the short term, at least, we don’t need to worry about superintelligent AI taking over the world.

But that’s not to say AI doesn’t present risks. Again, Morris and co have thought this through: as AI systems gain great capability, they may also gain greater autonomy. Different levels of capability and autonomy present different risks.

For example, when AI systems have little autonomy and people use them as a kind of consultant – when we ask ChatGPT to summarise documents, say, or let the YouTube algorithm shape our viewing habits – we might face a risk of over-trusting or over-relying on them.

In the meantime, Morris points out other risks to watch out for as AI systems become more capable, ranging from people forming parasocial relationships with AI systems to mass job displacement and society-wide ennui.

What’s next?

Let’s suppose we do one day have superintelligent, fully autonomous AI agents. Will we then face the risk they could concentrate power or act against human interests?

Not necessarily. Autonomy and control can go hand in hand. A system can be highly automated, yet provide a high level of human control.

Like many in the AI research community, I believe safe superintelligence is feasible. However, building it will be a complex and multidisciplinary task, and researchers will have to tread unbeaten paths to get there.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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ADM+S Research Fellow presents research at King’s College London

Dang and collleagues at KCL
L-R: Jonathan Gray, Dang Nguyen, Elisa Oreglia

ADM+S Research Fellow presents research at King’s College London

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 29 October 2024

Dr Dang Nguyen from RMIT University recently returned from the United Kingdom having completed a two-week research visit with colleagues at King’s College London.

Hosted by Dr Jonathan Gray and the Department of Digital Humanities, Dr Nguyen was also invited to spend time with the Centre of Digital Culture, the Department of Media, Culture, & Creative Industries, and to learn about the work being done at the new Digital Futures Institute.

“The welcome I received at King’s College was wonderful from day one. Everyone was so generous and approachable, and it was a pleasure to connect over our shared research interests while discovering the impressive digital humanities research happening here,” said Dr Nguyen.

On 27 September the Department of Digital Humanities invited Dr Nguyen to present her research on Automated Informality in a talk titled ‘Anatomy of a phone farm: hardware, platforms, infrastructure’.

Drawing on preliminary fieldwork in Southeast Asia, the presentation demonstrated how phone farms form an integral part of the global platform economy, highlighting the extensive networks and infrastructures necessary for these farms to function.

The visit provided an opportunity to exchange current research projects and findings, and to explore potential collaborations with colleagues across the various social science departments.

“The connections I’ve built with colleagues at King’s College are incredibly valuable for my current research.

“Over the next few years, I’ll be collaborating closely with Dr. Jonathan Gray, Director of the Centre for Digital Culture at the Digital Futures Institute, to develop innovative research methods for studying platform economic informality.

“I’ll also be working with Dr. Elisa Oreglia, Dr. Funda Ustek Spilda, and Dr. Niki Cheong to expand emerging networks focused on digital Southeast Asia research,” she said.

This research visit was supported by ADM+S.

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Prof Deborah Lupton elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences

Deborah Lupton elected to AAHMS 2024
Prof Deborah Lupton, UNSW

Prof Deborah Lupton elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 24 October 2024

On 24 October the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (AAHMS) announced 31 new Fellows, including ADM+S Chief Investigator and Health Focus Area leader, Prof Deborah Lupton.

Established in 2014, the AAHMS is an expert representative and independent voice for health and medical sciences in Australia, dedicated to engaging with the community, industry and government on pressing related to health.

Made up of Australia’s most influential experts in health and medicine – from universities, medical research institutes, health services, industry bodies, charities and public service – AAHMS Fellows are elected by their peers for outstanding achievements and contributions to the health and medical sciences in their respective fields.

2024 Fellows were welcomed in a ceremony at the Academy’s Annual Meeting in Adelaide on 24 October.

Academy President Prof Louise Baur said, “Our Fellowship represents the breadth and diversity of Australia’s health and medical expertise, allowing us to draw on independent, expert and evidence-based advice to drive change and improve health for all.

“Our new Fellows have a truly exceptional body of work, with each of them considered international leaders in their respective fields.”

Prof Deborah Lupton is SHARP Professor in the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW Sydney, working in the Centre for Social Research in Health and the Social Policy Research Centre, and leading the Vitalities Lab.  She is the author/co-author of 20 books and editor/co-editor of a further ten book collections, as well as over 240 book chapters and articles.

“As leader of the Health Focus Area of ADM+S, I am looking forward to productive discussions and collaborations on automation and AI in health with other Fellows of AAHMS,” said Prof Lupton.

Read more about Deborah’s research.

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ADM+S submission cited in Australian Government’s Second Interim Report into Social Media and Australian Society

ADM+S submission cited in Australian Government’s Second Interim Report into Social Media and Australian Society

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 23 October 2024

The Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, established by the Federal Government, has published its Second Interim Report on Digital Platforms and the Traditional News Media, citing contributions from the 28 June ADM+S submission.

The 22 October second interim report focusses on “the decision of Meta to abandon deals under the News Media and Digital platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code (Code) and the important role of Australian journalism, news, and public interest media on a healthy democracy in countering mis- and disinformation on digital platforms.”

The report regularly cites ADM+S research when discussing algorithmic transparency, fact-checking, misinformation, and the role and function of the News Media Bargaining Code.

It provides 11 recommendations informed by 217 submissions, including establishing a Digital Affairs Ministry, exploring alternative revenue mechanisms to supplement the Code, developing protocols for transparent distribution of revenue, new legislation to combat mis- and disinformation, and that the Australian Government establish a short-term transition fun to help news media businesses diversify and strengthen alternative income streams and news product offerings.

ADM+S Associate Investigator Assoc Prof James Meese from RMIT University, and lead author on the ADM+S submission said, “We’re pleased that our research has assisted the committee in their study of these important issues.

“ADM+S members from a variety of disciplines contributed to our submission, and it is outcomes like this which highlight the value of cross-disciplinary research and collaboration.”

The Committee is due to present its final report on or before 18 November 2024.

View the Interim Report

View the ADM+S Submission

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Could a recent ruling change the game for scam victims? Here’s why the banks will be watching closely

hands typing

Could a recent ruling change the game for scam victims? Here’s why the banks will be watching closely

Author Jeannie Marie Paterson and Nicola Howell
Date 18 October 2024

In Australia, it’s scam victims who foot the bill for the overwhelming majority of the money lost to scams each year.

A 2023 review by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) found banks detected and stopped only a small proportion of scams. The total amount banks paid in compensation paled in comparison to total losses.

So, it was a strong statement this week when it was revealed the Australian Financial Conduct Authority (AFCA) had ordered a bank – HSBC – to compensate a customer who lost more than $47,000 through a sophisticated bank impersonation or “spoofing” scam.

This decision was significant. An AFCA determination is binding on the relevant bank or other financial institution, which has no direct right of appeal. It could have implications for the way similar cases are treated in future.

The ruling comes amid a broader push for sector-wide reforms to give banks more responsibility for detecting, deterring and responding to scams, as opposed to simply telling customers to be “more careful”.

Here’s what you should know about this landmark ruling, and what it might mean for consumers.

A highly sophisticated ‘spoofing’ scam

You might be familiar with “push payment” scams that trick the victim into paying money to a dummy account. These include the “mum I’ve lost my phone” scam and some romance scams.

The recent case concerned an equally noxious “bank impersonation” or “spoofing” scam. The complainant – referred to as “Mr T” – was tricked into giving the scammer access to his HSBC account, from which an unauthorised payment was made.

The scammer sent Mr T a text message, purportedly asking him to investigate an attempted Amazon transaction.

In an effort to respond to the (fake) unauthorised Amazon purchase, Mr T revealed security passcodes to the scammer, enabling them to transfer $47,178.54 from his account and disappear with it.

The fact Mr T was dealing with scammers was far from obvious – scammers had information about him one might reasonably expect only a bank would know, such as his bank username.

On top of this, the scam text message appeared in a thread of other legitimate text messages that had previously been sent by the real HSBC.

AFCA’s ruling

HSBC argued to AFCA that having to pay compensation should be ruled out under the ePayments Code, a voluntary code of practice administered by ASIC.

Under this code, a bank is not required to compensate a customer for an unauthorised payment if that customer has disclosed their passcode. The bank argued the complainant had voluntarily disclosed these codes to the scammer, meaning the bank didn’t need to pay.

AFCA disagreed. It noted the very way the scam had worked was by creating a sense of urgency and crisis. AFCA considered that the complainant had been manipulated into disclosing the passcodes and had not acted voluntarily.

AFCA awarded compensation covering the vast majority of the disputed transaction amount, lost interest charged to a home loan account, and $5,000 towards Mr T’s legal costs.

It also ordered the bank to pay compensation of $1,000 for poor customer service in dealing with the matter, including communication delays.


HSBC argued the complainant had given over his passcodes voluntarily, but AFCA disagreed. Mick Tsikas/AAP

Other cases may be more complex

In this case, the determination was relatively straightforward. It found Mr T had not voluntarily disclosed his account information, so was not excluded from being compensated under the ePayments Code.

However, many payment scams fall outside the ePayments Code because they involve the customer directly sending money to the scammer (as opposed to the scammer accessing the customer’s account). That means there is no code to direct compensation.

Still, AFCA’s jurisdiction is broader than merely applying a code. In considering compensation for scam losses, AFCA must consider what is “fair in all the circumstances”. This means taking into account:

  • legal principles
  • applicable industry codes
  • good industry practice
  • previous AFCA decisions.

Relevant factors might well include whether the bank was proactive in responding to known scams, as well as the challenges for individual customers in identifying scams.

Broader reforms are on the way

At the heart of this determination by AFCA is a recognition that, increasingly, detecting sophisticated scams can be next to impossible for customers, which can mean they don’t act voluntarily in making payments to scammers.

Similar reasoning has informed a range of recent reform initiatives that put more responsibility for detecting and responding to scams on the banks, rather than their customers.

In 2023, Australia’s banking sector committed to a new “Scam-Safe Accord”. This is a commitment to implement new measures to protect customers, including a confirmation of payee service, delays for new payments, and biometric identity checks for new accounts.

Changes on the horizon could be more ambitious and significant.

The proposed Scams Prevention Frameworklegislation would require Australian banks, telcos and digital platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent, detect, report, disrupt and respond to scams.

It would also include a compulsory external dispute resolution process, like AFCA’s, for consumers seeking compensation for when any of these institutions fail to comply.

Addressing scams is not just an Australian issue. In the United Kingdom, newly introduced rules make paying and receiving banks responsible for compensating customers, for scam losses up to £85,000 (A$165,136), unless the customer is grossly negligent.

Jeannie Marie Paterson is a Professor of Law at The University of Melbourne

Nicola Howell is a Senior lecturer at Queensland University of Technology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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ADM+S research delivers value for remote First Nations community partners

Co-researcher Floyd King conducting survey with elder John Duggie in Tennant Creek
Co-researcher Floyd King conducting survey with elder John Duggie in Tennant Creek

ADM+S research delivers value for remote First Nations community partners

Author Leah Hawkins and Dr Daniel Featherstone
Date 11 September 2024

The Mapping the Digital Gap research project has released its final community report from 2023, showcasing findings on communications access and digital inclusion for First Nations people in Tennant Creek in Northern Territory.

The report is an update of the Tennant Creek 2022 Outcomes Report and is the 21st in a series of comprehensive outcomes and update reports tailored to the 11 remote First Nations communities and local partner organisations visited since 2022.

The reports are part of the project’s commitment to Indigenous data sovereignty, providing survey data and analysis of interviews and research findings back to the participating communities.

The reports identify barriers to digital inclusion in each site and outline suggestions of strategies to address these barriers, and support local advocacy, planning and partnerships with government and industry stakeholders.

Over three years, the research team has engaged deeply with the unique context of each community, developing mutually beneficial partnerships with local agencies and stakeholders to deliver reciprocal outcomes.

“The partnership with RMIT for [Mapping the Digital Gap research] has been awesome.” said Madeline Gallagher-Dahn, CEO of Kalumburu Aboriginal Corporation.

“It’s basically highlighted a lot of areas that [the] majority of us wouldn’t think of on a day-to-day basis.  It also highlights the remoteness of Kalumburu and what is needed for these parts of the world and what can be done, what needs to be improved, and what still is a possibility.”

The community reports propose Digital Inclusion Plans for each community, tracking agency involvement and progress on place-based solutions to digital inclusion challenges.

Kerry Legge, CEO of Laynhapuy Homelands Aboriginal Corporation in East Arnhem Land, said “I found it really valuable because it feels like [the research team is] not just focused on this project, [they’re] actually helping Laynhapuy”.

“We really need technology here to run the organisation and then we’ve also got members who want it for their own purposes as well… that’s the story we’ve got to tell Australia [about the challenges in] closing the gap … to recognise that it is a gap.”

In a world that is experiencing accelerating digital transformation in many aspects of economic and social life, reliable and affordable communication technologies are necessary for accessing many services and managing daily life.

Through planning, advocacy, and local knowledge, First Nations community organisations are critical to the successful delivery of place-based digital inclusion initiatives in remote communities.

“Communication is really the vital key in any community,” said Darrin Atkinson, REDI.E team leader in Wilcannia, “especially Indigenous remote communities where we’ve got to bring ourselves up to date now and take advantage of the new technology that’s available …  we’ve got to grab it with both hands.”

Mapping the Digital Gap is a supplementary project of the Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII), established through the ADM+S Centre in partnership with Telstra since 2021. It seeks to address a lack of quantitative and qualitative data on digital inclusion in remote First Nations communities in Australia.

In 2023, the ADII and Mapping the Digital Gap project found a significant digital gap between First Nations people and other Australians of 7.5, which widens significantly with remoteness to 24.4 for remote First Nations people and 25.4 for very remote.

All community reports published so far are accessible via the Mapping the Digital Gap webpage. Mapping the Digital Gap will be releasing another 11 community update and outcomes reports from 2024 research trips, as well as a 2024 annual outcomes report later this year.

Mapping the Digital Gap has been renewed for another four years and will be tracking digital inclusion outcomes in an additional eight remote First Nations communities from 2025-2028.

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ADM+S researcher presents evidence for the inquiry into the Digital Transformation of Workplaces

Dr Walkowiak with colleagues Kobi Lens, Natalie Sheard and Mehdi Raigeign at the public hearing
Dr Walkowiak and colleagues at the 2 September hearing

ADM+S researcher presents evidence for the inquiry into the Digital Transformation of Workplaces

Author ADM+S Centre
Date 4 September 2024

ADM+S Affiliate Dr Emmanuelle Walkowiak recently presented evidence to the House Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training for the Inquiry into the Digital Transformation of Workplaces.

The public hearing took place on Sunday 2 September. 

Dr Walkowiak was invited to sit on the expert academic panel alongside colleagues Dr Kobi Leins, Dr Natalie Sheard and Dr Mehdi Rajaeian, to discuss the opportunities and risks of implementing AI in the workplace.

At the hearing, Dr Walkowiak shared key points from her 19 June submission to the Inquiry. She has provided the following statement (via RMIT University). 

“Generative AI has properties that are very different from other technologies and will transform our labour market in new ways.

The time to act to ensure that GenAI works for workers is now. My previous research has demonstrated that once technological and organisational choices are implemented, firms do not reverse their choices. Once GenAI is adopted and AI risk mitigation is decided, these choices will not be reversed.

There are two important aspects that I want to flag which differentiate GenAI from other technologies.

Firstly, during previous waves of technology adoption, we have observed a polarisation of income and opportunities on the labour market. What is different this time is that GenAI can enhance the productivity of less skilled and less experienced workers. My research shows GenAI can enhance productivity of less skilled and less experienced workers – positively impacting all workers. Immediate productivity gains for less experienced or less skilled workers was not something observed for other technologies. This is a unique opportunity presented by AI; appropriate policies need to be designed to unlock these opportunities.

Secondly, my recent research into AI risks shows that the transformation of jobs is driven by the inseparability between productivity gains and new AI risks. I analysed the exposure of the Australian Labour Market to eight AI risks (such as privacy or cybersecurity). These AI risks are new types of occupational risks. Mapping of AI risks exposure can help prioritise policy intervention to mitigate these risks.

What does it mean for the labour market? GenAI is a new type of economic agent, involving new types of productivity gains, new forms of learning and new types of risks. The major impact of technological change is a creative destruction of jobs and skills. In the US, research shows that 60% of job titles that existed in 2018 did not exist in the 40s. The creation of new jobs reflects not just automation, but the enabling of new capabilities and services that were not previously feasible without technologies. Policies must be designed and implemented to shape the adoption of GenAI that works for all workers and favour the creations of these new jobs. Upskilling is central to prepare the workforce for the next generation of jobs.

In conclusion, GenAI is about to bring transformational changes in the workplace. These changes can be shaped by adequate policy-making to ensure adoption of AI works for all workers, and there is an opportunity to make AI work for less skilled workers. To ensure that we maximise the benefits of AI adoption, we need a better understanding of emerging risks for workers, which need to be managed with adequate regulations and policies in order to protect workers.”

Dr Walkowiak is a Vice-Chancellor Senior Research Fellow in Economics, from the department of Economics, Finance and Marketing and is a research affiliate of the Blockchain Innovation Hub. 

Her research primarily focuses on technology driven inclusion at work and the changing nature of work in a digital economy.

Learn more.

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ADM+S partners with Victorian Women’s Trust for Rural Women Online

rural women online
Participants and mentor at Rural Women Online in Shepparton

ADM+S partners with Victorian Women’s Trust for Rural Women Online

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 30 August 2024

In 2024 the ADM+S Australian Digital Inclusion Index team are partnering with the Victorian Women’s Trust for Rural Women Online, a series of free, public events designed in consultation with community representatives to develop digital skills and confidence for women living in regional Victoria.

The program, taking place in Shepparton and then Yackandandah, feature hands-on workshops, drop-in digital support services and presentations from local organisations to develop digital literacy skills. Sessions are run by local facilitators to encourage community learning and ongoing support.

The ADM+S Australian Digital Inclusion (ADII) research team is collaborating with the Victorian Women’s Trust to study the impact of the program and its ability to help close the gap of digital inclusion in regional areas, through surveys and interviews with participants.

ADM+S research fellow and ADII team member Dr Kieran Hegarty explains, “We’re speaking to participants about how they found the programs, how it impacted their confidence and motivation, and their level of skills, and how these kind of place based programs can be developed and strengthened and rolled out in other communities across Australia.”

Central to the methodology of the ADII, citizens’ feedback is crucial in determining the impact of initiatives aimed at improving digital inclusion, and identifying areas that need improvement.

“As a researcher, these kind of programs and getting involved are really critical because it helps translate the research we do around digital inclusion into tangible actions that can benefit communities,” he said.

As part of the Shepparton program, on 8 August ADM+S director Prof Julian Thomas presented a keynote titled ‘Challenges and Opportunities of the Digital Era’, which focussed on digital inclusion with reference to the ADM+S Mapping the Digital Gap project, and the ADII.

Considering the crucial role digital technologies play in everyday life, Prof Thomas’ talk framed digital inclusion as a human right in the information age, highlighting both the opportunities this presents, as well as the risks posed by barriers to digital society, especially for women in regional and rural areas.

Chair of the Victorian Women’s Trust Alana Johnson said, “Nothing’s going to happen to reduce that digital divide unless we take action. We can’t sit back and expect the NBN, or the government, or the local council or whoever, to make it all right for us.

“We have to do that for community, with community and by community.”

Established in 1985, the Victorian Women’s Trust (VWT) is a proudly independent feminist organisation which supports women, girls and gender diverse people through social change projects and campaigns, thought-provoking events, mentorship opportunities, and grants for vital grassroots projects.

Learn more about the initiative in this video.

Rural women online video

Watch Prof Thomas’ keynote.

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ADM+S Student establishes future collaborations with North American colleagues

Kaixin Ji visits Northeastern University, Boston
Kaixin Ji visits Northeastern University, Boston

ADM+S Student establishes future collaborations with North American colleagues

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 26 August 2024

ADM+S PhD student Kaixin Ji has returned from a research visit to North America, collaborating with peers and industry experts in Maryland, Washington DC, Boston and New York.

Kaixin travelled to SIGIR conference in Washington DC to present her paper ‘Characterizing Information Seeking Processes with Multiple Physiological Signals’, which aims to characterise user emotions and cognitive changes measured by physiological signals during the search process.

This is the first study that explores user behaviours in a search by using the nuanced quantitative analysis of physiological signals.

After SIGIR, Kaixin was invited to visit University of Maryland where she reconnected with Prof Doug Oard who visited ADM+S at RMIT in early 2024, and had the opportunity to present her research to the Maryland IR network.

“Extending on my SIGIR paper, the presentations at Maryland focused on my overall thesis progress, measuring confirmation bias in information seeking with multi-modal physiological sensors,” said Kaixin.

“Because the audiences were not the communities I usually present to, I received many good questions and discussions – especially related to implications – that I haven’t thought of before and was really appreciated.”

Through the networks of colleagues at ADM+S, Kaixin also had the opportunity to visit the Ubiquitous Computing for Health and Well-being (UbiWell) Lab at Northeastern University in Boston, where she was hosted by Dr Varun Mishra, and lucky enough to attend Prof Gregory Abowd’s SIGCHI research lifetime award talk.

This visit prompted discussion around future collaborations, integrating Kaixin’s expertise of information retrieval in a ‘LLM for sensemaking in healthcare’ project, in collaboration with A. Prof Varun Mishra and Akshat Choube.

While in Boston, Kaixin also visited Whoop Inc., a company which specialise in wearable sensors for tracking health, and another connection she made through SIGIR.

“I thought there was no intersection between Information Retrieval and Ubiquitous Computing (for healthcare) communities, and was surprised there is, because of LLM.

“I visited their office in Boston, and we discussed the potential of having them as a collaborator on the UbiWell lab project,” she said.

From a connection made at UbiWell, Kaixin was then invited to visit ADM+S partner organisation Cornell Tech in New York City to further discuss synergies between her work and projects underway at Cornell. These conversations transpired into a new collaboration for ‘Cognitive Bias in Health Insurance LLM Assistant’, with PhD student Dan Adler.

“Apart from making new friends which is always a highlight, being exposed to different communities and different working environments from industry to research, computer science and schools – I gained career and life advice from researchers of different generations.

“More importantly, I learned how Information Retrieval is increasingly integrating with healthcare, and how my research aligns with this trend. These discussions help me rethink the implications of my research and what I want to do in the future.”

This research visit was supported by ADM+S and Google Conference Scholarships.

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Prof Flora Salim joins Day of AI’s inaugural Dolphin Tank competition to judge AI Proposals for Climate Solutions

Image credit: Day of AI

Prof Flora Salim joins Day of AI’s inaugural Dolphin Tank competition to judge AI Proposals for Climate Solutions

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 23 August 2024

ADM+S CI Prof Flora Salim recently joined Day of AI Australia to judge students’ ideas for AI interventions in climate change, in the inaugural Dolphin Tank competition.

As part of National Science Week, the Dolphin Tank took place on 14 August 2024.

The Dolphin Tank competition invited students to get creative and propose ideas for how AI could help tackle climate change and the UN sustainability goals.

Earlier in the year students from across Australia were invited to submit ideas, with 6 teams being selected to collaborate with experts from Rokt and UNSW’s AI Institute and School of Computer Science and Engineering to refine their idea and pitch a prototype to an expert panel as part of the Day of AI program.

ADM+S CI Prof Flora Salim joined experts Claire Southey from Rokt and Scientia Professor Toby Walsh from UNSW to judge the final pitches.

“The teams who made it through to the final round presented very clear and passionate pitches on their innovative ways to tackle climate change using AI,” said Prof Salim.

“We received more than 190 entries from students from all across Australia. From rubbish sorting systems, smart greenhouses to ideas for improving commercial fish stocks to predicting drought – innovative, creative and practical solutions where students had really thought about how AI could be used for positive impact,” said Day of AI Australia Program Director Natasha Banks.

“The six finalists who stepped into the Dolphin Tank were all exceptional.”

The innovative ideas of Fountain College students (junior competition) and North Sydney Boys School (senior competition) earned first prize.

The student entries were complimented by lightening talks delivered by the experts, inspiring students with stories of creative ways people are using AI in everyday life, work, and mobility.

“Having experts involved as both expert mentors for the six finalist teams, as judges, and delivering lightning talks really makes it evident for students that the opportunities for interesting, challenging and meaningful work is something they can be part of,” said Ms Banks.

Open to students from year 5-10, the Day of AI initiative encourages students to develop critical skills and knowledge for their increasingly digital future. The program covers topics including What is AI? How do machines learn? AI in Careers and Industries, and ethics and responsible use of AI. So far more than 60,000 primary and high school students have participating in the Day of AI Australia program.

Day of AI’s Dolphin Tank 2024 was supported by Rokt, UNSW Sydney and CSIRO .

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Prof Jason Potts presents ‘The Origin and Nature of Digital Economies’

Prof Jason Potts presenting at the RMIT Distinguished Lecture series
Image credit: RMIT Professional Academy

Prof Jason Potts presents ‘The Origin and Nature of Digital Economies’

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 14 August 2024

On Monday 5 August ADM+S CI Distinguished Prof Jason Potts delivered a lecture on The Origin & Nature of Digital Economies as part of the RMIT Professional Academy’s Distinguished Lecture Series.

“We are today in the early phases of a profound transition to a digital economy,” said Prof Potts.

“My argument is that a digital economy does not mean computers everywhere, but is the transition to digital institutions.”

In his talk, Prof Potts shares provocations of a new type of economy – a digital economy, fundamentally different from an industrial economy in the way these institutions (digital money and assets, digital markets, contracts and platforms) are composable to coordinate economic actions and compute value.

“The cheap new resource in a digital economy is not data per se, but rather the ability to spin-up a full stack economy from within civil society.

“This new institutional capability is the most disruptive factor of our time.”

Prof Potts is co-founder and Director of the RMIT Blockchain Innovation Hub. His research examines the institutional causes of technological change and innovation, with a current focus on crypto-economics and the economics of generative AI.

The RMIT Professional Academy was established in 2018 to bring together RMIT’s best minds in research, education, and engagement with community, business, government, and the public, to provide strategic advice, stimulate important discussions, and advocate for impactful value creation.

Watch the lecture on Youtube.

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ADM+S Research Fellow secures one of three 2024 ACCAN grants

ACCAN 2024 grants announced

ADM+S Research Fellow secures one of three 2024 ACCAN grants

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 14 August 2024

Congratulations to ADM+S Research Fellow Dr Kieran Hegarty, co-investigator on the recently announced ACCAN-funded project, Social infrastructure for digital skills development.

Dr Hegarty’s project is one of only three successful grants, out of 69 applications in the 2024 funding round, and will be led by Dr Ellen van Holstein from RMIT University. Dr Nicky Dulfer from University Melbourne is also a Co-Investigator.

Social infrastructure for digital skills development progresses research funded by ACCAN in the 2021, which analysed digital inequalities amongst public housing residents.

The 2021 research revealed the pivotal role neighbourhood centres play in digital skill acquisition and troubleshooting for people who face barriers to being digitally included.

Social infrastructure for digital skills development will develop insights into best practices for training, identify barriers to digital inclusion, and develop strategies to overcome to these barriers.

In a 11 July media release, ACCAN CEO Carol Bennet said, “Grants projects inform ACCAN’s work and contribute to the broader evidence base for consumers, regulators and service providers in the telecommunications market.

“This year’s grantees will make a real difference to the experience of Australian consumers, and we look forward to working with the successful applicants as they undertake these exciting projects,” Ms Bennett concluded.

The research team is partnering with Neighbourhood Houses Victoria, Farnham Street Neighbourhood Learning Centre, and Carlton Neighbourhood Learning Centre to understand the role played by neighbourhood houses in supporting digital inclusion.

Dr Hegarty explains, “Along with public libraries, neighbourhood houses form part of the social infrastructure needed for connected communities, and play a key role in supporting an inclusive digital society.

“These organisations provide internet access and digital skill development for those at risk of being digitally excluded, including public housing residents and low-income households.”

The project will commence in 2025 and will culminate with the delivery of a digital pedagogies workshop to neighbourhood centre staff to communicate insights from the project to help strengthen the crucial role they play in supporting digital inclusion in their communities.

The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) is Australian’s peak communications consumer advocacy group, working towards achieving trusted, inclusive and accessible communications services.

The ACCAN Independent Grants program funds projects to enable research on telecommunications issues, represent telecommunications consumers, or create educational tools which empower consumers to understand telecommunications products and services and make decisions in their own interests.

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Dang Nguyen inaugural scholar of Yale Law School’s Majority World Initiative

Dr Dang Nguyễn, RMIT University
Dr Dang Nguyễn, RMIT University

Dang Nguyen inaugural scholar of Yale Law School’s Majority World Initiative

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 13 August 2024

Dr Dang Nguyen from RMIT University is one of only eight scholars in the inaugural cohort of Yale Law School’s Majority World Initiative (MWI), supporting social media scholars from the Global South by amplifying their work and thinking, and drawing them into the global scholars’ community.

The MWI was launched in November 2022 by the Information Society Project (ISP), an intellectual centre at Yale Law School supporting a community of interdisciplinary scholars who explore issues at the intersection of law, technology, and society.

“Being part of the inaugural cohort has allowed me to connect with, and learn from, so many scholars doing really important work in this area. This initiative is a vital step toward ensuring that Majority World perspectives are not just included but are central to global discussions on social media and its impacts,” said Dr Nguyen.

‘Majority World’ (coined by Bangladeshi photographer Chahidul Alam) refers to the region traditionally knows as the Global South or developing world, which encompasses the majority of humankind.

“To understand or discuss the global networked public sphere, we need global thought leadership that is focused, context-driven and detail-oriented,” said Chinmayi Arun, Executive Director of the ISP.

“This is only possible if Majority World scholars join minority world scholars and work with them on an equal footing on thinking through the networked public sphere.”

The inaugural cohort includes lawyers, academics and policymakers collaborating to understand what resources will enable scholars in the region to focus on key issues.

The group recently published a series of  essays around propaganda and social media governance in their respective Majority World area of expertise.

Dr Nguyen’s essay, Automated Propaganda as Platform Imperative? The Case of Instant Articles, examines propaganda as a persisting media-dependent phenomenon and argues that it is time we moved beyond examining isolated instances of automated propaganda.

“Instead, we should orient our collective efforts around understanding how automated communication is being shaped by the broader political economy, technological development, and regulatory environment in which media industries and systems operate,” Dr Nguyen explains.

“As we build on the work we’ve started, I’m eager to see how our collective insights will push the boundaries of current scholarship. The opportunity to collaborate with such a diverse group of thinkers has the potential to drive meaningful change in how social media governance is understood and implemented globally.”

Dr Nguyen’s research investigates the social implications of technology by bringing together methods from a range of disciplines and by looking beyond Western contexts.

Her current research examines the digitality of knowledge-making and its implications on the information environment, the conditions of possibility of contemporary technological cultures, and automated informality and its moral economies.

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ADM+S at RMIT welcomes DIGITAUS from Tsinghua University

Members from Tsinghua University’s DIGITAUS visits RMIT University
Members from Tsinghua University’s DIGITAUS visits RMIT University

ADM+S at RMIT welcomes DIGITAUS from Tsinghua University

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 9 August 2024

On Friday 2 August, ADM+S members from the RMIT School of Computing Technologies (SCT) welcomed a delegation of Tsinghua University’s DIGITAUS Social Practice Team.

The 14 DIGITAUS representatives included esteemed faculty members, doctoral candidates and undergraduate students.

“DIGITAUS are seeking to understand the digital transformation practices of Australia’s key industries, with a specific interest in how university laboratories are contributing to the technological innovation in industry,” said ADM+S AI Dr Damiano Spina, who coordinated the visit.

RMIT hosts showcased the RMIT AWS Supercomputing (RACE) Hub, and the Virtual Experiences Lab (VXLab), where the group saw the NOVA Helicopter Simulator (HeliSim) in action.

Prof George Buchanan (Deputy Dean of Research, SCT) gave a presentation about the research capabilities and existing industry engagement at the School, and ADM+S PhD student Sachin Cherumanal introduced the group to Walert – a customised chatbot designed to answer questions related to SCT programs.

“The Walert interaction promoted awareness about the limitations and risks of LLM-based conversational assistants, including intent-based and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems,” said Dr Spina.

Visiting the ADM+S office, the group was excited to hear about the impacts of research being carried out by ADM+S stakeholders in academia, industry and communities, flicking through the ADM+S annual reports to understand the expanse of our network and engagement.

The visit wrapped up with an insightful display and discussion around ‘Information Retrieval on Country’ (2023),  a commissioned Indigenous artwork by Dr Treahna Hamm (Firebrace), which seeks to bridge the gap between heritage and innovation, fostering a profound appreciation for the timeless connection between Elders, land, and the wealth of knowledge embedded within their intertwined stories.

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Developing best practice strategies for Australian Centres of Excellence

COE PD day
CoE staff at the communications and outreach workshop

Developing best practice strategies for Australian Centres of Excellence

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 6 August 2024

On 23-25 July 2024 professional staff members working across the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence scheme gathered at QUT Kelvin Grove for three days of professional development, best practice discussion, and networking.

Bringing together more than 120 staff members from 19 Centre’s around Australia, the event was facilitated by the Queensland-based ARC Centre of Excellences.

On Tuesday 23 July, Centre Directors and Chief Operating Officers kicked off proceedings with a program designed to share valuable knowledge on research translation, program governance, and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategies.

The leadership group was joined by Prof Alistair McEwan, Executive Director for Centres of Excellence at the Australian Research Council, and Prof Kerrie Wilson, Queensland’s Chief Scientist, who provided insights and ideas from their respective roles in the research sector.

ADM+S Chief Operating Officer Nicholas Walsh shared his experience of the ARC mid-term review as part of a panel designed to equip other Centre leaders with expectations of the process.

ADM+S director Prof Julian Thomas was also featured in the program, speaking about the ADM+S Centres EDI EDI strategy and initiatives, alongside colleagues from OzGrav and CEVAW.

The annual all-staff program took place on Wednesday 24 July, and aimed to build connections across the COE network for staff to co-develop best practice strategies for challenges and opportunities unique to Centres of Excellence.

“The week presented ample opportunities for sharing insights, developing practical skills, and building valuable networks to enhance our contributions to the field,” said ADM+S Chief Operating Officer Nick Walsh.

Members from different Centre’s presented on various topics of their expertise, including First Nations engagement, leadership development, and workplace wellbeing.

Additional workshops were run on Thursday 25 July, addressing specialised topics such as finance management, communications and outreach, and research infrastructure optimisation.

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Recordings available from RE/FRAMING – Creativity / Culture / Computation

Recordings available from RE/FRAMING – Creativity / Culture / Computation

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 1 August 2024

On 2-4 July 2024, researchers, artists, industry partners and collaborators joined forces at RMIT University to explore the transformation of creativity and the creative fields by generative artificial intelligence tools at RE/FRAMING – Creativity / Culture / Computation.

Event organiser and ADM+S Affiliate Dr Daniel Binns said, “The key objectives of Re/Framing were to bring together a bunch of interesting and interested people to talk about generative AI and creativity, but also its impacts on creative industries and art practice.

“I wanted to demystify generative AI systems, to play and experiment with them and to use these experiences to think pragmatically and realistically about what we can achieve with these tools, and what new knowledge we can generate in this space.”

The roundtables, workshops and experimental modes of idea generation encouraged participants to incubate ideas around AI’s capabilities to solve complex creative and cognitive challenges, and provided space for groups to devise new methods for considering, reading, using, and analysing AI-generated media.

The program featured Bhautik Joshi, Senior Research Engineer from Canva, Jessie Hughes, Senior Creative Technologist and artist-in-residence at Leonardo.AI, as well as a number of expert academics working in the space.

“We played with Suno, the music generation tool, we also played with Leonardo.Ai, the image and motion generator, and we heard from a diverse group of people around the very real creative, economic, industrial, material and environmental challenges that this technology presents us with,” said Dr Binns.

“There’s definitely an appetite for this kind of work and collaboration. We’re currently organising two online seminars (details to come), where we’ll hear from some of the Re/Framing attendees about their research and interests, and in November one of the Re/Framing delegates Meg Herrmann has organized a spiritual follow-up event called Artificial Visionaries.

Recordings from the RE/FRAMING event are now available to stream on ADM+S YouTube.

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ADM+S Artist-Researchers Featured in 2024 Now or Never Festival

Joel Stern/Machine Listening performance 2023
Joel Stern/Machine Listening performance 2023

ADM+S Artist-Researchers Featured in 2024 Now or Never Festival

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 26 July 2024

ADM+S Associate Investigator Dr Joel Stern, ADM+S Affiliate Assoc Prof James Parker, and Machine Listening collaborator Dr Sean Dockray will showcase a new exhibition and performance in Melbourne as part of the upcoming 2024 Now or Never Festival.

On 31 August Machine Listening will perform a newly commissioned work titled Songbook (5-x), the first Australian iteration of a project premiered at Unsound 2023 in Krakow, with support from ADM+S.

The collective will present a suite of new songs exploring techniques of automatic reading, writing, recitation, composition, and decomposition as part of the Soft Centre Program at the Trades Hall Building in Carlton.

“The Machine Listening Songbook performance at Soft Centre is a chance for us to continue developing the work we began last year at Unsound in Krakow,” said Dr Stern.

“We want to think playfully and critically about what a ‘song’ might mean in the context of generative AI, platform economies and data capitalism. We’re interested in exploring how automated technologies around sound and music might be used in politically reflexive, subversive, contradictory and revealing ways.”

Established in 2020, Machine Listening is a platform for collaborative research and artistic experimentation, focused on the political and aesthetic dimensions of the computation of sound and speech.

Dr Stern and Dr Dockray have also curated ‘This Hideous Replica’, an experimental project featuring artworks, performances, screenings, workshops, a ‘replica school’ and other uncanny encounters to be exhibited at RMIT Gallery, Capitol Theatre, and other Melbourne venues.

The exhibition will be open from 22-31 August as part of the Now or Never program and will continue at RMIT Gallery until 16 November.

Lifting its title from a misheard line in a 1980 song by The Fall about a reclusive dog breeder whose ‘hideous replica’ haunts industrial Manchester, this experimental project adopts monstrous replication as a tactic, condition, and curatorial framework for exploring algorithmic culture, simultaneously alienating, seductive and out-of-control.

It features works by Debris Facility, Heath Franco & Matthew Griffin, Josh Citarella, Liang Luscombe, Mochu, Diego Ramírez, Masato Takasaka, Anna Vasof, Loren Adams and many more.

Dr Stern explains, “This Hideous Replica is an opportunity to bring together artists, writers, researchers, musicians and others to share ideas, methods and creative practices for dealing with a world that is increasingly bewildering and basically weird as it overflows with content, information, perspectives, and things.”

Registration for various exhibits in “This Hideous Replica” are now open:

  • Mochu: Great Chain of Stains or Incompatible Rationalities on the Web reading group
    1:00pm – 4:00pm, 28 Aug 2024, First Site Gallery
    An unscripted conversation, watching-and-reading group with artist and writer Mochu exploring the possibilities and impossibilities of experimental writing after the internet.
  • Jennifer Walshe: 13 Ways of Looking at AI, Art and Music workshop
    11:00am – 1:00pm, 4 Sep 2024, First Site Gallery
    “AI is not a singular phenomenon. We talk about it as if it’s a monolithic identity, but it’s many, many different things – the fantasy partner chatbot whispering sweet virtual nothings in our ears, the algorithm scanning our faces at passport control, the playlists we’re served when we can’t be bothered to pick an album. The technology is similar in each case, but the networks, the datasets and the outcomes are all different.”
  • A Hacker Manifesto at 20: A reading group with McKenzie Wark
    2:00pm – 4:00pm, 4 Sep 2024, First Site Gallery
    Writer, theorist, and raver McKenzie Wark leads a reading and discussion group on her influential text, A Hacker Manifesto, 20 years after its publication by Harvard University Press in 2004.
  • This Hideous Replica: McKenzie Wark and Jennifer Walshe at The Capitol
    6:00pm – 8:00pm, 5 Sep 2024, the Capitol
    McKenzie Wark: From Automatic to Automated Writing
    A public lecture by writer and theorist McKenzie Wark rethinking historical avant-garde debates on the ‘conceit of the author’ through the prism of AI and generative text.

This Hideous Replica is produced by RMIT Culture with support from the ADM+S Centre, RMIT Design and Creative Practice Enabling Impact Platforms.

The Now or Never Festival celebrates creativity, inquiring minds, and exploration, with a focus on art, ideas, sound and technology.

The theme for the 2024 event is Look through the Image’, inviting audience members to interrogate what’s in front of them, explore deeper meanings, contemplate layers of symbolism and question reality from AI-generated narratives and visual distortion works to cinematic and augmented reality experiences.

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ADM+S Associate Investigator Sarah Erfani receives Women in AI Award for Defence and Intelligence

Sarah Erfani Women in AI Awards 2024
Sarah Erfani receives a 2024 Women in AI Award

ADM+S Associate Investigator Sarah Erfani receives Women in AI Award for Defence and Intelligence

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 4 July 2024

Congratulations to Assoc Prof Sarah Erfani from the University of Melbourne, who was awarded the 2024 Women in AI Award for the ‘Defence and Intelligence’ division.

Announced at the 28 June ceremony, the awards are the most prestigious recognition for Women in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the Asia-Pacific region, honouring those working, leading, researching, creating, or innovating in the field of AI.

“I am honoured to receive this award. This recognition reinforces my commitment to fostering trust and confidence in AI systems among the general public, policymakers and stakeholders.” Associate Professor Erfani said.

“When individuals feel assured that AI technologies are developed and deployed responsibly, they are more likely to embrace their use and adoption.”

Sarah is an ARC DECRA Fellow in the School of Computing and Information Systems, where her research focuses on promoting transparency in AI systems and guaranteeing their accuracy, enabling stakeholders to trust and validate the reasoning behind AI-driven outcomes, and confidently use them in their daily tasks.

Her work on safe and reliable AI have made important theoretical and practical contributions that are used by practitioners in various domains such as telecommunication, health, and energy.

At ADM+S, Sarah is a researcher on the Generative Authenticity project, and the GenAI Sim project.

Women in AI is a non-profit organisation founded in 2016 to work towards inclusive AI that benefits global society and promotes empowerment, knowledge and active participation through education, research, events and blogging.

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ADM+S Research Featured at the 74th Annual International Communication Association Conference

ADM+S Research Featured at the 74th Annual International Communication Association Conference

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 1 July 2024

The 74th Annual International Communication Association (ICA) conference was held on the Gold Coast in Queensland from 20-24 June, where ADM+S members from across Australia showcased their research around the 2024 theme of ‘Communication and Global Human Rights’.

The ICA conference is the premier annual event for scholars and professionals in the field of communication, where hundreds of research papers are presented to an average attendance of over 2,000 academics.

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society held a strong presence throughout the program. 

ADM+S Associate Director Distinguished Professor Jean Burgess was invited to deliver the annual ICA Steve Jones lecture. Prof Burgess’ talk, titled ‘Why the GenAI Moment Needs Communication and Media Studies’, covered the widespread integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in everyday apps and services, highlighting the importance of inclusivity, accessibility, transparency, and explainability.

“It was wonderful, if intimidating, to have such a prestigious opportunity and such a large platform,” said Prof Burgess.

“I used the occasion to share my thoughts on how our field might respond to and help shape the unfolding configurations of GenAI in our communication and media environment, and how the various projects, Centres and labs I’m involved in are beginning to do so.

“I was really touched to have so many colleagues from the QUT Digital Media Research Centre and ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society come along in support. I couldn’t be prouder to be a member of this community.”

ICA Awards

ADM+S Affiliate Dr T.J. Thomson was awarded a Top Faculty Paper in the Journalism Studies division for his paper ‘Generative Visual AI in Newsrooms: Challenges, Opportunities, Perceptions, and Policies’ co-authored by Assoc Prof Ryan Thomas and Phoebe Matich.

The paper explores how photo editors perceive and/or use generative visual AI in their editorial operations and outlines the challenges and opportunities they see for the technology.

Additionally, Ehsan Dehgan, Dominique Carlon, Ashwin Nagappa and Kateryna Kasianenko also received a Top Paper award in the Intergroup Communication division for their paper ‘A Culture War without a Battlefront: Sedimented Polarisation across Political Subreddits’ which analysed 16 years’ worth of submissions across 11 political subreddits.

ICA Presentations

The following ICA sessions featured ADM+S researchers. To view all speakers and session abstracts, see the 2024 ICA program.

  • Aging with Technology: Multipe Interfaces for Social Connections
    ADM+S presenter: Anthony McCosker (chair)
  • Business and Pleasure: Queer Perspectives on Work, Health and Desire
    ADM+S presenters: Kathy Albury and Zahra Stardust (From Commodified Pleasures to Improvisational Desires: Countersexual Uses and Experiences of Sextech by LGBTQ+ People)
  • Communication and Knowledge in an Age of AI Philosophy
    ADM+S presentes: Mark Andrejevic (Automated Parasociality: From Personalization to Personification)
  • Covering the Climate Crisis
    ADM+S presenter: Michelle Riedlinger (Medialization Works Both Ways: Describing the Scientization of Journalism)
  • Critical Perspectives on Health and Popular Media
    ADM+S presenter: Wenqi Tan (Representations of Cyborgs and Disability in the Worlds of Cyberpunk 2077 and Citizen Sleeper)
  • Cultural Production and Generative Artificial Intelligence: A Matchpoint for Creativity
    ADM+S presenter: Jonathon Hutchinson (chair/ The Match Point for Creative Work: Generative AI in China’s Live E-Commerce Industry)
  • Datafication: Ethical, Political, and Cultural Questions Philosophy
    ADM+S presenter: Mark Andrejevic (chair)
  • Disability Rights are Human Rights: Disability Research Across Communication Studies
    ADM+S presenter: Gerard Goggin (chair)
  • Disability Rights, Communications and Technology
    ADM+S presenters: Gerard Goggin (chair), Alexa Scarlata (Disability Rights, Media Accessibility and Smart TVs) and Wenqi Tan (Interrogating the Autonomous Dream: An Instrumentalization Theory Approach to Examining the Inclusion of People with Ambulatory Disabilities in Singapore’s Autonomous Public Transport Development)
  • Disability Rights, Social Justice and Activism
    ADM+S presenter: Gerard Goggin (chair)
  • Exploring New Strategies, Methods and Technologies to Track and Counter Mis- /Disinformation
    ADM+S presenters: Daniel Angus, Ashwin Nagappa, Axel Bruns, Nadia Jude (“What Else Are They Talking About?”: A Large-Scale Longitudinal Analysis of Misinformation Super-Spreader Communities on Facebook), and Damiano Spina (Human-AI Cooperation for Tackling Misinformation).
  • Follow the Money: Markets and Monetization in Media Industries
    ADM+S presenter: Ramon Lobato (chair)
  • Generating Trust through Generative AI?
    ADM+S presenters: Ned Watt, Silvia Montana-Nino and Michelle Riedlinger (Generative AI and Fact Checking in the Southern Hemisphere: Insights from a Regional Comparison of Meta-Affiliated Fact Checkers)
  • Global Media Witnessing and the Struggle for Human Rights
    ADM+S presenter: Michael Richardson (Witnessing Aftermaths)
  • High-Tech Journalism
    ADM+S presenter: Wiebke Loosen (From Innovation Labs to Innovation Systems in Public-Service Media)
  • Histories and Archaeologies of Digitization
    ADM+S presenter: Gerard Goggin (chair)
  • Journalism: Theories and Paradigms
    ADM+S presenters: Silvia Montana-Nino, Michelle Riedlinger and Ned Watt (Understanding Contemporary Verification Cultures: Informing a Theory of Institutionalized Fact-Checking Values in Times of News Platformization)
  • Living in a Datafied Society: Surveillance, Algorithms, and the Transformation of Everyday Materiality in China
    ADM+S presenter: Haiqing Yu (discussant) 
  • NZCA – Australia’s Media and Communication Ecology and the 2023 Voice Referendum
    ADM+S presenters: Timothy Graham and Bronwyn Carlson (panel participants)
  • Observing the Cultural Practices of TikTokers in Views of Platform Algorithm and Global Human Rights
    ADM+S presenter: Haiqing Yu (Claiming Identity and Nationalism on TikTok: A Case Study of Rohingya Digital Diaspora)
  • Online Deliberation, and Media in Civic Engagement
    ADM+S presenters: Lucinda Nelson (Depp v Heard: Cancel Culture and Online Discourses about Violence against Women)
  • Polarization and Partisanship
    ADM+S Presenter: Axel Bruns (Polarised Media Framing of Climate Protests: A Comparative Mixed-Methods Analysis of Australia and Germany)
  • Prompting Progress or Generating Problems? AI in News Construction Processes
    ADM+S presenters: Axel Bruns (chair), T.J. Thomson (Generative Visual AI in Newsrooms: Challenges, Opportunities, Perceptions, and Policies)
  • Questions and Research Directions in Communication Studies and Global Human Rights, ICA Closing Keynote
    ADM+S presenter: Gerard Goggin (panelist)
  • Storytelling on Steroids? Video and Audio Technologies for Journalism
    ADM+S presenter: T.J. Thomson (Visual News and Journalistic Practice in Urban and Regional Areas: A Comparative Australian- Chinese Perspective)
  • Streaming Diversity? On and Off-Screen Diversity in an Era of Automated Media Culture
    ADM+S presenters: Kylie Pappalardo (Policy and Regulatory Challenges for Improving Representation Diversity on Our Screens), Alexa Scarlata (Streaming Women: Gendering SVOD Curation from Netflix to Passionflix), and Verity Trott (Defining and Doing Diversity)
  • The CAP Roundtable on 30 Years of the Chinese Internet and Beyond
    ADM+S presenter: Haiqing Yu (participant)
  • The Possibilities and Perils of Generating News with Generative AI
    ADM+S presenters: Ned Watt and Michelle Riedlinger (The Fact Checkers’ “Helper”: Fact-Checking Imaginaries for Generative AI Technologies)
  • The Very Picture of Health: Images and Well-Being
    ADM+S presenter: T.J. Thomson (chair)
  • Top Papers in Media Industry Studies
    ADM+S presenters: Ramon Lobato and Alexa Scarlata (Smart TV Users and Interfaces: Who’s in Control?)
  • Understanding Laws and Regulations for Children’s Media Use
    ADM+S presenter: Jonathon Hutchinson (Social Digital Dilemmas: Young People’s and Parents’ Negotiation of Emerging Online Safety Issues)
  • ICA24 Sunday Fellows’ Session
    ADM+S presenter: Jean Burgess (panelist)

Lastly, following the recent launch of the Australian Internet Observatory, Program Director and ADM+S research Fellow Amanda Lawrence spoke about the new initiative in a panel organised and chaired by ADM+S Chief Investigator Prof Daniel Angus, titled ‘Supporting the Stack: Considerations in the Ongoing Development, Deployment and Maintenance of Computational Communication Research Infrastructure’.

This panel focussed on the importance of larger scale software infrastructure for research, and also featured ADM+S members Dr Laura Vodden, Dr Abdul Karim Obeid, Dr Elizabeth Alpert, alongside Jane Tan (QUT) and international colleagues Megan Brown, Dr Josephine Lukito, and Jason Greenfield (New York U).

The significant contributions made by ADM+S researchers at ICA 2024 exemplified the Association and ADM+S’ shared commitment to advancing theoretical frameworks and strategies for communication studies.

Learn more about the International Communication Association.

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ADM+S Research Fellow featured in the World Association for Sexual Health’s Sexual Rights Webinar

ADM+S Research Fellow featured in the World Association for Sexual Health’s Sexual Rights Webinar

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 21 June 2024

ADM+S Research Fellow Dr Zahra Stardust recently joined the World Association for Sexual Health as a panellist for their 10-year anniversary of the WAS Declaration of Sexual Rights Webinar.

Speaking alongside Faysal El Kak, Sharful Islam Khan, Mauro Cabral Grinspan, Anne Philpott, and moderator and Chair of the WAS Sexual Rights Committee, Eszter Kismödi, the panel reflected on the past decade of challenges and triumphs in sexual health.

Speakers discussed critical themes such as the influence of technology on sexual rights, the effects of migration and war, and the ongoing challenges of criminalisation.

“Over the last decade we’ve seen rapid advances in the pace of technology, and in some contexts, it’s played a role in facilitating access to healthcare,” said Dr Stardust.

“Digital tools are being developed as alternative methods in environments where there are criminal legal frameworks, government neglect or limited infrastructure such as apps for abortion self-care, chatbots for sex education, or tools to screen and predict health issues like infertility.

“However, there remain a lot of concerns about the design, data and governance of such technologies, including risks around data breaches of sensitive.”

Dr Stardust is a socio-legal scholar working at the intersections of sexuality, technology, law and social justice.

Over the last 15 years Zahra has worked in policy, advocacy, legal and research capacities with community organisations, NGOs and UN bodies on human rights in Australia and internationally.

WAS is a Confederation representing thousands of people who work in Sexual Health globally, including Healthcare Professionals, Educators and Activists, actively creating a world in which all people have access to Sexual Health, Rights, Justice and Pleasure.

View the webinar on Youtube.

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New podcast episodes from an ADM+S/PERN collaboration

New podcast episodes from an ADM+S/PERN collaboration

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 31 May 2024

The ADM+S podcast has released five new episodes following the 25-26 April event ‘Digital Platform Economies: Value from Data’, in collaboration with PERN.

The event was held at The New School in New York City, featuring a program of speakers from both the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, and PERN.

Designed to stimulate discussion about value forms and valuation processes through the lenses of digital assets, Web3 tokenization, digital twins, automated optimization, and generative AI, each session considers the questions: How do platforms produce value and monetize those value forms?

New episodes:

 

  • Web 3: Creating Economies in Digital Worlds
    Featuring Kean Birch (PERN), Fabio Mattioli (PERN/ADM+S), Ellie Rennie (ADM+S), Kelsie Nabben (ADM+S), and moderated by Janet Roitman.
    This session examines the following questions: How are Web3 digital economies designed? What processes, infrastructures, and practices are implicated in these designs? What forms of ‘new’ value are emerging? What forms of value are increasingly irrelevant? And what methods are applicable to the examination of these domains?

 

  • Digital Twins
    Featuring Michael Richardson (ADM+S), Zoe Horn (ADM+S), Mark Andrejevic (ADM+S), and moderated by Seyram Avle (PERN).
    This panel asks: How do digital twins generate value? How are they imagined to reshape labour, logistics, and future planning? What regulatory interventions are needed as government and industry are increasingly drawn to the lure of digital platforms for modelling futures and modulating the real? What multidisciplinary methods of analysis and lines of inquiry are relevant to this emerging domain?
  • Value Propositions in Platform Regulation
    Featuring Jake Goldenfein (ADM+S/PERN), James Meese (ADM+S/PERN), Thao Phan (ADM+S), Angela Xiao Wu (PERN), and moderated by Linda Huber (PERN).
    This session addresses the following questions: How do particular value propositions justify specific governance and managerial interventions? How do market-framing narratives (e.g., the data market) become dominant? What are their expressions in different contexts? How do these approaches embed diverse strategies for distributing regulatory and civic functions between private and public actors?

 

  • Concept Work for Platform Economies
    Featuring Na Fu (PERN), Koray Çalışkan (PERN), Franziska Cooiman (PERN), Silvia Lindtner (PERN), Janet Roitman (ADM+S/PERN), and moderated by Emma Park (PERN).
    The session examines how core concepts, such as commodity, capital, labor, rent, data, and information, operate with reference to specific platform contexts. The aim is to consider how each case either challenges or confirms conventional understandings of particular concepts and to stimulate general discussion of theoretical challenges and research methods.

Listen on the ADM+S Podcast.

View photos from this event on Flickr.

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ADM+S Student presents at the 2024 World Wide Web Conference in Singapore

Search Recommender systems

ADM+S Student presents at the 2024 World Wide Web Conference in Singapore

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 31 May 2024

ADM+S PhD Student Chenglong Ma recently presented at the 2024 World Wide Web Conference (WWW’24) in Singapore.

Chenglong presented a poster and oral presentation on Temporal Conformity-aware Hawkes Process on Recommendations, which challenges the assumption that user behaviour in recommender systems is solely driven by personal interests, and highlights the influence of peer effects and conformity behaviour.

His work criticizes existing solutions that overlook this influence and introduces the TCHN model which employs attentional Hawkes processes to separate user self-interest from conformity, and temporal graph attention networks to capture users’ changing dynamics.

“I’m thrilled that my work on the Temporal Conformity-aware Hawkes Proess on Recommendations received significant attention and valuable feedback,” said Chenglong.

“It was a wonderful experience, and I had the opportunity to meet many outstanding researchers.”

The WWW’24 is an annual academic conference on the topic of the future direction of the World Wide Web. It remains the premier venue to present and discuss progress in research, development, standards, and applications of the topics related to the Web.

In addition to making important connections during the conference, Chenglong also connected with leading researchers in his field while visiting Nanyang Technological University, including Prof Aixin Sun.

“We share common views on research issues in recommender systems, and I greatly admire his rigorous and critical thinking.

He criticised the simplification of research task definitions for overemphasising modelling decision outcomes rather than the decision-making process. This approach hinders the ability to predict users’ decisions in subsequent interactions within a dynamic, evolving, and application-specific context.”

Prof Sun praised Chenglong’s ability, as a PhD student, to discover and identify valuable research questions in addition to merely solving the problems, noting that some studies overly focus on improving recommendation accuracy, neglecting research questions that are more valuable and worthy of exploration.

Chenglong’s WWW’24 experience was supported by ADM+S.

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ADM+S research informs Senate report on Bank Closures in Regional Australia

ADM+S research informs Senate report on Bank Closures in Regional Australia

Author ADM+S Centre
Date 30 May 2024

On Friday 24 May 2024 the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee delivered its final report on Bank closures in regional Australia, citing the ADM+S submission, as well as evidence provided by Centre Director Prof Julian Thomas.

The enquiry addresses the current extent of bank closures in regional Australia, including reasons for closure, economic and welfare impacts on communities, the effectiveness of government banking statistics capturing and reporting regional service levels, and consideration of solutions.

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society’s submission to the enquiry detailed findings from two key programs at the Centre, the Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) and the Mapping the Digital Gap project.

The submission is referenced throughout the Committee report referring to issues around digital connectivity; scams and fraud; and impacts on older Australians as well as service access issues in remote communities and the pace of closures and the digital divide.



The report also includes quotes from Centre Director Prof Julian Thomas, who provided evidence to the Enquiry at a public hearing in February 2024.

In the report, Prof Thomas is quoted, “as our society and economy transitions more to digital services, those who are somewhat behind can fall further behind very quickly. 

“That’s really the difficulty, that what would have been an adequate internet service 10 or 15 years ago is no longer really sufficient for the provision of the sorts of digital services which governments and organisations like banks are now providing. 

“It’s that moving target problem which is the issue here.”

View the full report.

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ADM+S members recognised at RMIT Annual Research Awards

RMIT Research Awards

ADM+S members recognised at RMIT Annual Research Awards

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 23 May 2024

Congratulations to ADM+S researchers and the ADM+S operations team, who have been recognised for their impact and engagement at the 2023 RMIT Vice Chancellors Awards, RMIT Research Awards, and Research Service Excellence Awards, held at RMIT University on Tuesday 30 April 2024.

  • Mapping the Digital Gap research team, Vice Chancellors Award for Research Engagement and Impact (team category). 

The Mapping the Digital Gap team, consisting of Dr Daniel Featherstone, Dr Lyndon Ormond-Parker, Professor Julian Thomas, Dr Indigo Holcombe-James and Dr Jenny Kennedy, received this award in recognition of their significant research impact and engagement in their work, addressing the lack of longitudinal digital inclusion data in remote First Nations communities.

Mapping the Digital Gap project lead Dr Daniel Featherstone said, “I want to acknowledge the community organisations and local co-researchers that make the Mapping the Digital Gap project possible. Those partnerships allow us to engage and have an impact on the ground, as well as through policy. 

“We’re grateful to Telstra for their ongoing support, to the ADM+S community, and to the policy commitment from States, Territories, and industry in supporting progress on Closing the Gap target 17.”

Daniel RMIT award.
The award was received by Daniel Featherstone on behalf of the Mapping the Digital Gap team.

 

Kelsie Nabben, Vice Chancellors Prize for Research Engagement and Impact (Higher Degree by Research category).  

Kelsie was awarded this prize for demonstrating research engagement and impact in the social implications of emerging technologies. The award acknowledges her interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation at the confluence of economics, engineering, law, and online communities.

Throughout her PhD program, Kelsie’s work has attracted attention from industry leaders who recognize the practical application of her work in shaping technology governance frameworks relevant to their sectors, allowing her to engage with industry and demonstrate impact in her work.

Kelsie Nabben receiving the Vice Chancellors Prize for Research Engagement and Impact.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation Calum Drummond said “the nomination recognises your exceptional support for research and innovation across every aspect of the ADM+S centre’s work. Your solutions-oriented innovative approach in supporting initiatives for the research community , strengthening relationships, and thereby enhancing the research ecosystem is remarkable.

“Further, the nomination recognises you as a team that demonstrates an unwavering commitment to contribute to building RMIT’s research and innovation reputation.”

ADM+S Chief Operating Officer Nick Walsh said the award was a terrific honour for the research service team at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), and thanks RMIT for their continued support.

“We are grateful to all the professional staff that provide support for ADM+S across the nine Australian university nodes, as well as our fellow colleagues in RMIT’s service areas who have helped build ADM+S into a highly successful, world class research centre.”

Absent: Leah Hawkins, Julie Stuart, Kathy Nickels and Lucy Valenta.

 

Kieran Hegarty, RMIT Prize for Research Engagement and Impact (Higher Degree by Research category).    

Kieran was awarded the prize for Research Engagement and Impact in recognition of his research on the changing role of public libraries in an era of digital and social media. 

His interdisciplinary research not only makes significant contributions to knowledge, but also informs practice change within the library and information profession. During his PhD, Kieran has embedded himself within a practice setting, enabling him to engage with professionals and better understand their perspectives to inform his work.

Kieran Hegarty receiving the RMIT Prize for Research Engagement and Impact.

 

  • Sally Story, Special Commendation for Service Excellence Award.

Sally received multiple nominations for the Service Excellence Award, which detailed Sally’s strong commitment to the betterment of student experiences, professional growth, and wellbeing. 

The nominations demonstrated Sally’s dedicated performance as Research Training Coordinator at the ADM+S Centre of Excellence. 

Sally Storey receiving the Special Commendation for Service Excellence Award.

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New ADM+S Project Film: Automation and Public Space

Automation and Public Space

New ADM+S Project Film: Automation and Public Space

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 22 May 2024

On Wednesday 22 May the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society released the first short-film in a new outreach series providing a look into the inner workings of research projects underway at the Centre.

The ADM+S Project Films initiative will span across ongoing phase 1 and phase 2 projects, highlighting the breadth of topics covered across the four focus areas, disciplines, institutions and researchers.

How is Automation Impacting Public and Shared Space? based on the ADM+S project Automation and Public Space, features project co-lead AI Michael Richardson alongside Research Fellow Thao Phan, CI Jake Goldenfein, Affiliate Andrew Brooks and PhD Student  Zoe Horn, who provide critical insights into their work on Drone Delivery, Automated Crowd Control, and Digital Twins.

The film identifies key research questions, methodologies and findings so far, including:

  • Research participants in our testbed project tell us that drone delivery is a convenient solution to traffic congestion, unsafe roads and poor public transport. But if the success of this new marketplace relies on the failures of local infrastructure, what are commercial actors really investing in?
  • Predictive policing tools using AI and machine learning are often presented as neutral and objective solutions to the problem of the crowd. However, issues arise when the models are trained on existing police data that may already contain discriminatory bias.
  • Digital Twins allow you to transform a space, environment or process via a feedback loop of sensors between the real and the virtual, and these hidden systems are often informing the ecological, economic, social and cultural decisions that govern everyday life and space.

The speed at which these technologies are emerging means that many are under regulated and require a great deal of regulatory modernisation.

The multidisciplinary and cross-institutional project team at ADM+S is working to understand how automated spatiality leads to the reconfiguring of public space, how commercial operators like digital platforms are mediating our experience of shared space, and how policy settings, industrial demands and defence priorities shape the development and application of automated technologies.

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ADM+S partner on the 2024-33 Decadal Plan for Social Science Research Infrastructure in Australia

2024-33 Decadal Plan for Social Science Research infrastructure

ADM+S partner on the 2024-33 Decadal Plan for Social Science Research Infrastructure in Australia

Author Australian Academy of the Social Sciences
Date 20 May 2024

On 10 April 2024 the Academy of the Social Sciences launched a 10-year strategy for transforming national social science research infrastructure in Australia.

Led by the Academy with the support of five partner organisations including the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), Connected, Innovative and Responsive: Decadal Plan for Social Science Research Infrastructure 2024-33 sets out a compelling vision for a framework of connected and integrated social science researchers across universities, government research and data agencies, and private and not-for-profit organisations.

It includes three broad goals for the sector over the 10-year timeframe, with nine priority actions that will help achieve those goals, and five decision-making principles to guide investments and priorities and ensure the biggest return for Australians on our research investment.

ADM+S researcher and expert working group member on the project Prof Daniel Angus explains, “a national commitment to digital platform National Research Infrastructure (NRI), on the scope and scale that is often provided for science and medical infrastructure is likely to be one of the most cost effective and sustainable approaches.”

Speaking at the launch in Canberra, the Academy’s project lead Dr Isabel Ceron noted that the plan has been developed at the right time to take advantage of an enormous step change in the amount of social data that’s becoming available to researchers.

‘In a similar way large telescopes inaugurated a new era of discovery for astrophysics and space science, in the same way that peeking into our genes forever changed the way we understood life and its determinants, we are now starting to see masses of social, human data, pouring in from all corners of society.’

By building and connecting the infrastructure, protocols, governance and people support needed to make this data accessible, social science researchers will be able to gain a much more detailed and nuanced understanding of social systems, structures and trends and provide more valuable insights and advice to decision makers.

One of the central considerations of the plan is the need to facilitate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ leadership of and sovereignty over their own data, with priority actions focused on embedding principles of Indigenous Data Governance, Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property principles and processes into future research infrastructure.

Another key consideration is to encourage greater awareness and understanding of the value of investing in and utilising a cohesive and functional research infrastructure ecosystem across both the research and policy sectors.

The Decadal Plan is the result of a partnership between the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Researchand UQ Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR).

It was developed over two years and in consultation with hundreds of social science researchers, technical experts and stakeholder organisations.

Read more on the Academy website.

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ADM+S Members Awarded 2024 ARC Early Career Industry Fellowships

ADM+S Members Awarded 2024 ARC Early Career Industry Fellowships

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 8 May 2024

Congratulations to Dr Jose-Miguel Bello y Villarino from the University of Sydney and Dr Jessica Balanzategui from RMIT University who are amongst just 50 recipients of the 2024 ARC Early Career Industry Fellowship grants.

Announced on 6 May 2024, ARC Acting Chief Executive Officer Dr Richard Johnson said that offering the opportunity for early career researchers to collaborate in an industry setting is critical to ensuring Australia’s capability in meeting future industry-identified challenges.

Dr Bello y Villarino’s project ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Anticorruption’ is a collaboration with the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), and seeks to realise the revolutionary potential of artificial intelligence systems as an anticorruption tool, providing a legal and policy roadmap to ensure data and methods are properly designed and deployed.

“The appointment is, above all, an exceptional opportunity to work with a leading partner on how to use AI and ADM in government in ways that are effective and efficient to achieve social goals, but ensure that the use of those future tools are procure and deployed responsibly,” said Dr Bello y Villarino.

“The partnership with ICAC, Australia’s longest-standing anticorruption agency, is expected to build in-house capacity and knowledge diffusion within ICAC, as well as deliver a holistic approach to ensuring the sustainability and broader impact of the project in other Australian anticorruption agencies.”

Dr Balanzategui’s project ‘Enhancing Discoverability of Australian Children’s TV in the Streaming Era’, aims to protect the Australian children’s TV sector by developing an understanding of how children use video streaming platforms to access local and age-appropriate content.

In collaboration with The Australian Children’s Television Foundation, the project expects to generate new evidence to inform regulation, investment, and strategy around children’s TV, as well as well as develop an education program with additional partner ACMI.

Dr Balanzategui explains, “this Fellowship provides me the opportunity to contribute directly to the Australian children’s television sector at a time of significant flux and policy change for the industry.

“For over 40 years the Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF) has been a pivotal strength of the sector and the policy settings that undergird it, but the structure of the sector has been overhauled in the streaming era.”

Working with an advisory board of representatives from the ABC, ACMA and Screen Australia, the project will develop a prototype platform showcasing child-centred design principles for the benefit of the broader sector.

ARC Early Career Industry Fellowships are funded for three years under the Industry Fellowships Programs to help build innovation in the industry, community, not-for-profit, and other government and publicly funded research sectors.

Read the ARC Media Release.

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Short Course: Artificial Intelligence for Social Impact

Dang Nguyễn AI shortcourse

Short Course: Artificial Intelligence for Social Impact

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 1 May 2024

ADM+S Research Fellow Dr Dang Nguyen has collaborated with the Asian Development Bank Institute to develop an E-learning short course which explores the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for social impact.

The free online course aims to help policy makers, researchers and students gain foundational knowledge in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential for driving positive societal change.

“It was a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with the ADBI in developing this resource.

“The course is intended to help policymakers, researchers, and non-specialists in emerging economies, particularly in the Asia-Pacific, to navigate the intersection of AI and social change with confidence,” explains Dr Nguyen.

The course consists of three units that examine the historical and social context of the emergence of AI, as well as the capabilities of the technologies and systems.

“Whether you’re seeking to shape policies, develop innovative solutions, or simply deepen your understanding of this rapidly evolving field, this course serves as a vital starting point for thinking about how AI can contribute to a more ethical, responsible, and inclusive future for all.”

Access Artificial Intelligence for Social Impact on our Learning Resources page.

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Prof Mark Sanderson inducted into the 2024 SIGIR Academy

Mark Sanderson SIGIR Academy
2024 SIGIR Academy Inductee, Prof Mark Sanderson (RMIT)

Prof Mark Sanderson inducted into the 2024 SIGIR Academy

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 1 May 2024

Congratulations to ADM+S Chief Investigator Prof Mark Sanderson from RMIT University who has been recognised as a Special Interest Group on Information Retrieval (SIGIR) Academy Inductee in 2024.

Appointment to the SIGIR Academy honours individuals who have made significant, cumulative contributions to the development of the information retrieval field.

Each year, a small cohort of 3-5 new members is inducted into the SIGIR Academy, and election is considered an official Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) award.

Prof Mark Sanderson is the Dean of Research and Innovation at the STEM College at RMIT University. His research primarily focuses on search engines, recommender systems, user, data, and text analytics.

He has been an investigator on over $50 million worth of externally funded grants. He has published over 300 papers and has over 13,000 citations to his work.

“The SIGIR information retrieval research community means a great deal to me and to be recognised in such a way is an honour.

This vibrant research community continues to be a nurturing environment to develop and present my research. The community has always provided feedback in a collegiate manner that has continually encouraged me,” said Prof Sanderson.

Inductees are recognised as principal leaders in information retrieval whose efforts have shaped the discipline through significant research, innovation, and/or service.

Other criteria for nomination include the development of new research directions and innovations, influence on the work of others, and active participation in the ACM SIGIR community.

“I would not be joining the class this year if it were not for the incredible collaboration I have enjoyed with the Undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students I have had the privilege to work with over the years.”

Prof Sanderson’s appointment will be formally celebrated at the 2024 SIGIR conference, to be held 14-18 July in Washington, USA.

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Dr Jake Goldenfein invited to present on AI in government decision-making at Parliament House

Dr Jake Goldenfein invited to present on AI in government decision-making at Parliament House

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 15 March 2024

On 15 March ADM+S Chief Investigator Dr Jake Goldenfein was invited by the Association for Australian Information Commissioner’s to speak at Victoria’s Parliament House about how software supply chains, outsourcing, and human oversight requirements affect transparency into automated decision-making systems.

The meeting was hosted by the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC), and was attended by Information Commissioners, Privacy Commissioners, and both state and federal Information Access Commissioners from Australia and New Zealand.

Dr Goldenfein was invited to talk about AI in government decision-making – specifically how AI software supply chains frustrate information access and transparency rules.

“It is always a privilege to address regulators who really understand the policy environment and how public service organisations operate. I appreciate the opportunity to translate some of the more conceptual work we do into that context,” he said.

Dr Goldenfein is a law and technology scholar at Melbourne Law School. His research focus spans the regulation of surveillance, law in cyber-physical systems, the relationship between data science and legal theory, and platform governance.

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ADM+S researchers present evidence at Senate Committee hearing into Media Reform Bill

ADM+S researchers present evidence at Senate Committee hearing into Media Reform Bill

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 5 March 2024

On 23 February 2024 Assoc Prof Ramon Lobato, Dr Alexa Scarlata and Dr Jessica Balanzategui from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) at RMIT University presented evidence at the Senate Communications and Environment Committee hearing into the Media Reform Bill (Prominence and Anti-Siphoning) at Parliament House in Canberra.

In November 2023, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland introduced legislation that requires smart TV manufacturers to preinstall iView, SBS On Demand, 9Now, 7Plus and 10Play on all smart TVs sold in Australia.

“The government’s proposed smart TV law is a light-touch change that will support our local content and public-service broadcasting ecosystem without compromising the user experience,” said Prof Ramon Lobato.

Assoc Prof Lobato and Dr Scarlata were invited to the hearing to present findings from their research on smart TV users, while Dr Balanzategui shared evidence on child audiences from her Australian Children’s Television Cultures project and study on Netflix and child/family audiences.

Assoc Prof Lobato and Dr Scarlata described findings from a nationally representative survey of over 1,000 Australian smart TV users which revealed that 33 per cent of users don’t know how to download apps on their smart TV, and 56 per cent of users don’t know how to change the order of apps on their TV.

Therefore, exposure to local content is heavily determined by manufacturers and their commercial partners.

“Since 2019, our research group at ADM+S, RMIT University has been studying local content prominence in smart TVs, to understand what smart TV’s mean for public policy, and to provide analysis and evidence to inform the regulatory options.

“Based on these findings, we support the bill, because it will rebalance what has become a structurally unequal marketplace,” said Assoc Prof Lobato.

Similarly, Dr Balanzategui’s evidence described that while children enjoy Australian content, they struggle to find and identify it on streaming platforms and smart TVs. Citing her research findings, only 16.7 per cent of children in her study selected Australian content as a first choice when observed using streaming platforms.

This research shows that discoverability of local and age-appropriate content is a challenge for Australian children and their families which could be alleviated by the requirements introduced in the Prominence and Anti-siphoning Bill.

Assoc Prof Lobato said, “we appreciated the opportunity to share our findings on smart TV user behaviour with the Senate Committee and to participate in what were often detailed policy and technical discussions between the Senators, TV network heads, streaming services, and consumer electronics manufacturers.”

The meeting was chaired by Senator Karen Grogran, and attended by Senators Catryna Bilyk, Ross Cadell, Hollie Hughes and David Pocock. Amongst the expert witnesses were heads of all Australian free-to-air networks, as well as representatives from Netflix and Foxtel.

 

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ADM+S Partner Investigator invited to speak about responsible AI at the United Nations

Julian Stoyanovich UN
Prof Julia Stoyanovich at the CsocD62.

ADM+S Partner Investigator invited to speak about responsible AI at the United Nations

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 29 February 2024

On 7 February 2024, ADM+S Partner Investigator Prof Julia Stoyanovich from New York University was invited to speak on responsible artificial intelligence (AI) at the United Nation’s 62nd session of the Commission for Social Development (CSocD62).

The Commission took place from 5 to 14 February 2024 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and focused on ‘fostering social development and social justice through social policies to accelerate progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to achieve the overarching goal of poverty eradication’.

Prof Stoyanovich was one of six panellists invited to discuss this meeting’s emerging issue, ‘the Influence of Digital Transformation on Inclusive Growth and Development: A Path to Achieving Social Justice.’

Defining AI as a system in which algorithms use data to make decisions on our behalf, or help humans make decisions, Prof Stoyanovich provided examples of successful AI implementation, where technology responds to a particular need to improve the status quo.

As an example, Prof Stoyanovich detailed how AI has significantly improved the efficiency of MRI’s and other technical medical services.

However, referring to a recent study about the use of AI in hiring processes and their amplification of biases, Prof Stoyanovich demonstrated how such systems can fail.

“You cannot outsource the work of being human,” she said.

“For safe use we must have another factor that contributes to their successful use and that is decision-maker readiness.

For example, a clinician or radiologist who is assisted by an AI, but understands they are ultimately responsible for treatment and diagnosis and knows when to trust AI predictions and when to challenge them.”

The panellists offered a range of perspectives on Responsible AI, AI Literacy and AI Governance to be considered by the commission, which is the advisory body responsible for the social development pillar of global development.

“We are technically ready to make [AI systems] in terms of data software and hardware, and we know how to validate them. These are some of the hallmarks of responsible AI.

“However, for safe use we must have another factor that contributes to their success, and that is decision-maker readiness,” Prof Stoyanovich explained to the Commission.

View the full hearing on UNDESA YouTube. (Prof Stoyanovich: 1:00h-1:15h)

Recent opinion piece from Prof Stoyanovich on regulating responsible AI.

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So, you’ve been scammed by a deepfake. What can you do?

Image: Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock

So, you’ve been scammed by a deepfake. What can you do?

Author Jeannie Marie Paterson
Date 26 February 2024

Earlier this month, a Hong Kong company lost HK$200 million (A$40 million) in a deepfake scam. An employee transferred funds following a video conference call with scammers who looked and sounded like senior company officials.

Generative AI tools can create image, video and voice replicas of real people saying and doing things they never would have done. And these tools are becoming increasingly easy to access and use.

This can perpetuate intimate image abuse (including things like “revenge porn”) and disrupt democratic processes. Currently, many jurisdictions are grappling with how to regulate AI deepfakes.

But if you’ve been a victim of a deepfake scam, can you obtain compensation or redress for your losses? The legislation hasn’t caught up yet.

Who is responsible?

In most cases of deepfake fraud, scammers will avoid trying to fool banks and security systems, instead opting for so-called “push payment” frauds where victims are tricked into directing their bank to pay the fraudster.

So, if you’re seeking a remedy, there are at least four possible targets:

  1. the fraudster (who will often have disappeared)
  2. the social media platform that hosted the fake
  3. any bank that paid out the money on the instructions of the victim of the fraud
  4. the provider of the AI tool that created the fake.

The quick answer is that once the fraudster vanishes, it is currently unclear whether you have a right to a remedy from any of these other parties (though that may change in the future).

Let’s see why.

The social media platform

In principle, you could seek damages from a social media platform if it hosted a deepfake used to defraud you. But there are hurdles to overcome.

Platforms typically frame themselves as mere conduits of content – which means they are not legally responsible for the content. In the United States, platforms are explicitly shielded from this kind of liability. However, no such protection exists in most other common law countries, including Australia.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is taking Meta(Facebook’s parent company) to court. They are testing the possibility of making digital platforms directly liable for deepfake crypto scams if they actively target the ads to possible victims.

The ACCC is also arguing Meta should be liable as an accessory to the scam – for failing to remove the misleading ads promptly once notified of the problem.

At the very least, platforms should be responsible for promptly removing deepfake content used for fraudulent purposes. They may already claim to be doing this, but it might soon become a legal obligation.

The ACCC has sued Meta (Facebook’s parent company) to test if Facebook could be sued for targeting scam ads to victims. Jeff Chiu/AP

The bank

In Australia, the legal obligations of whether a bank has to reimburse you in the case of a deepfake scam aren’t settled.

This was recently considered by the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, in a case likely to be influential in Australia. It suggests banks don’t have a duty to refuse a customer’s payment instructions where the recipient is suspected to be a (deepfake) fraudster, even if they have a general duty to act promptly once the scam is discovered.

That said, the UK is introducing a mandatory scheme that requires banks to reimburse victims of push payment fraud, at least in certain circumstances.

In Australia, the ACCC and others have presented proposals for a similar scheme, though none exists at this stage.

In Australia, the legal obligations of whether a bank has to reimburse you in the case of a deepfake scam aren’t settled.

This was recently considered by the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court, in a case likely to be influential in Australia. It suggests banks don’t have a duty to refuse a customer’s payment instructions where the recipient is suspected to be a (deepfake) fraudster, even if they have a general duty to act promptly once the scam is discovered.

That said, the UK is introducing a mandatory scheme that requires banks to reimburse victims of push payment fraud, at least in certain circumstances.

In Australia, the ACCC and others have presented proposals for a similar scheme, though none exists at this stage.

Australian banks are unlikely to be liable for customer losses due to scams, but new schemes could force them to reimburse victims. TK Kurikawa/Shutterstock

 

The AI tool provider

The providers of generative AI tools are currently not legally obliged to make their tools unusable for fraud or deception. In law, there is no duty of care to the world at large to prevent someone else’s fraud.

However, providers of generative AI do have an opportunity to use technology to reduce the likelihood of deepfakes. Like banks and social media platforms, they may soon be required to do this, at least in some jurisdictions.

The recently proposed EU AI Act obligates the providers of generative AI tools to design these tools in a way that allows the synthetic/fake content to be detected.

Currently, it’s proposed this could work through digital watermarking, although its effectiveness is still being debated. Other measures include prompt limits, digital ID to verify a person’s identity, and further education about the signs of deepfakes.

Can we stop deepfake fraud altogether?

None of these legal or technical guardrails are likely to be entirely effective in stemming the tide of deepfake fraud, scams or deception – especially as generative AI technology keeps advancing.

However, the response doesn’t need to be perfect: slowing down AI generated fakes and frauds can still reduce harm. We also need to pressure platforms, banks and tech providers to stay on top of the risks.

So while you might never be able to completely prevent yourself from being the victim of a deepfake scam, with all these new legal and technical developments, you might soon be able to seek compensation if things go wrong.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The secret sauce of Coles’ and Woolworths’ profits: high-tech surveillance and control

Image credit: Jack Sparrow, Pexels

The secret sauce of Coles’ and Woolworths’ profits: high-tech surveillance and control

Author Lauren Kelly
Date 23 February 2024

Coles and Woolworths, the supermarket chains that together control almost two-thirds of the Australian grocery market, are facing unprecedented scrutiny.

One recent inquiry, commissioned by the Australian Council of Trade Unions and led by former Australian Consumer and Competition Commission chair Allan Fels, found the pair engaged in unfair pricing practices; an ongoing Senate inquiry into food prices is looking at how these practices are linked to inflation; and the ACCC has just begun a government-directed inquiry into potentially anti-competitive behaviour in Australia’s supermarkets.

Earlier this week, the two companies also came under the gaze of the ABC current affairs program Four Corners. Their respective chief executives each gave somewhat prickly interviews, and Woolworths chief Brad Banducci announced his retirement two days after the program aired.

A focus on the power of the supermarket duopoly is long overdue. However, one aspect of how Coles and Woolworths exercise their power has received relatively little attention: a growing high-tech infrastructure of surveillance and control that pervades retail stores, warehouses, delivery systems and beyond.

Every customer a potential thief

As the largest private-sector employers and providers of essential household goods, the supermarkets play an outsized role in public life. Indeed, they are such familiar places that technological developments there may fly under the radar of public attention.

Coles and Woolworths are both implementing technologies that treat the supermarket as a “problem space” in which workers are controlled, customers are tracked and profits boosted.

For example, in response to a purported spike in shoplifting, a raft of customer surveillance measures have been introduced that treat every customer as a potential thief. This includes ceiling cameras which assign a digital ID to individuals and track them through the store, and “smart” exit gates that remain closed until a purchase is made. Some customers have reported being “trapped” by the gate despite paying for their items, causing significant embarrassment.

Woolworths surveillance cameras monitor the self-checkout area. Woolworths.

 

At least one Woolworths store has installed 500 mini cameras on product shelves. The cameras monitor real-time stock levels, and Woolworths says customers captured in photos will be silhouetted for privacy.

A Woolworths spokesperson explained the shelf cameras were part of “a number of initiatives, both covert and overt, to minimise instances of retail crime”. It is unclear whether the cameras are for inventory management, surveillance, or both.

Workers themselves are being fitted with body-worn cameras and wearable alarms. Such measures may protect against customer aggression, which is a serious problem facing workers. Biometric data collected this way could also be used to discipline staff in what scholars Karen Levy and Solon Barocas refer to as “refractive surveillance” – a process whereby surveillance measures intended for one group can also impact another.

Predicting crime

At the same time as the supermarkets ramp up the amount of data they collect on staff and shoppers, they are also investing in data-driven “crime intelligence” software. Both supermarkets have partnered with New Zealand start-up Auror, which shares a name with the magic police from the Harry Potter books and claims it can predict crime before it happens.

New Zealand startup Auror claims to predict crime before it happens.

 

Coles also recently began a partnership with Palantir, a global data-driven surveillance company that takes its name from magical crystal balls in The Lord of the Rings.

These heavy-handed measures seek to make self-service checkouts more secure without increasing staff numbers. This leads to something of a vicious cycle, as under-staffing, self-checkouts, and high prices are often causes of customer aggression to begin with.

Many staff are similarly frustrated by historical wage theft by the supermarketsthat totals hundreds of millions of dollars.

From community employment to gig work

Both supermarkets have brought the gig economy squarely inside the traditional workplace. Uber and Doordash drivers are now part of the infrastructure of home delivery, in an attempt to push last-mile delivery costs onto gig workers.

The precarious working conditions of the gig economy are well known. Customers may not be aware, however, that Coles recently increased Uber Eats and Doordash prices by at least 10%, and will no longer match in-store promotions. Drivers have been instructed to dispose of the shopping receipt and should no longer place it in the customer’s bag at drop-off.

In addition to higher prices, customers also pay service and delivery fees for the convenience of on-demand delivery. Despite the price increases to customers, drivers I have interviewed in my ongoing research report they are earning less and less through the apps, often well below Australia’s minimum wage.

Viewed as a whole, Coles’ and Woolworths’ high-tech measures paint a picture of surveillance and control that exerts pressures on both customers and workers. While issues of market competition, price gouging, and power asymmetries with suppliers must be scrutinised, issues of worker and customer surveillance are the other side of the same coin – and they too must be reckoned with.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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ADM+S/DMRC Summer School supports next generation researchers in digital media and automated decision-making

2024 Summer School participans standing under world globe

ADM+S/DMRC Summer School supports next generation researchers in digital media and automated decision-making

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 15 February 2024

The 2024 Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society / Digital Media Research Centre Summer School saw over 150 delegates and presenters gather at QUT in Brisbane for an intensive five-day program.

Higher degree research students (HDRs) and early career researchers (ECRs) from all nine ADM+S nodes were in attendance, networking and learning from over 50 DMRC and ADM+S senior researchers, industry guests and partner collaborators, through a range of workshops, panels and masterclasses

ADM+S Manager of Research Training and Development, and member of the Summer School working group Sally Storey, said “the program covered a wide territory of exciting research across the two Centre’s disciplines and topic areas.

“The Summer School showed us how much we can learn and benefit from both the DMRC and ADM+S’ extraordinary research community, and helped us sharpen questions, refine methods, enhance knowledge on cross-disciplinary research, and make connections both nationally and internationally.”

The program offered a week of inspiring and thought-provoking training by DMRC and ADM+S world-leading researchers.

Sessions ranged from ‘Hollywood’s Labour Crisis’, to ‘Dewesternising Research’, ‘Researching informal Media Industries’, ‘Creative Approaches to Research Translation’, and ‘Using Open AI to Classify, Annotate and Process Data’.

The program was designed to bring researchers, students and industry partners together, to share how they are confronting a range of Australian and global challenges in digital media industries and automated decision-making areas.

A key highlight of the program was keynote speaker Yoel Roth, Former Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter (now X), which emphasised the notion that we can’t rely on technical solutions for social problems.

Another highlight of the week for many students and senior researchers, were the one-on-one mentoring sessions tailored by our event organisers.

“It’s such a great opportunity to talk to people at the Centre who you don’t always have a chance to meet.

“It’s really reassuring to know that there’s a kind of model of work out there in the world that you might emulate, and that it might be just within your grasp,” said PhD student Zoe Horn.

The 2024 Summer School was designed to encourage participants to question, debate, and share their research with others.

“HDR students and ECRs are working at the forefront of media industry and ADM research, so fostering collaboration for meaningful discussions that will further collective knowledge is vital for offering fresh perspectives and insights,” said Dr Michelle Riedlinger, Chair of the 2024 Summer School.

We extend thanks to all our speakers, mentors, and student participants for making this event possible, and especially the DMRC and ADM+S working group for their hard work behind the scenes delivering this event so seamlessly.

View the 2024 Summer School photo library.

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ADM+S Research Fellow invited to provide evidence to the Federal Parliament

Jose Miguel Bello y Villarino and colleagues at the AI for education hearing on Jan 30
Dr Jose-Miguel Bello y Villarino alongside other panellists at the January 30 hearing.

ADM+S Research Fellow invited to provide evidence to the Federal Parliament

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 13 February 2024

On Tuesday 30 January 2024, ADM+S Research Fellow Dr Jose-Miguel Bello y Villarino from the University of Sydney was invited to present evidence to Federal Parliament on the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the Australian education system.

Members of Parliament’s House Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training, travelled to Sydney to meet with Jose-Miguel and colleagues who are working on an ARC Discovery project investigating the use and regulation of AI in education.

The 45-minute hearing focused on preliminary observations connected to two ongoing projects; the panel’s 2024-2026 ARC Discovery Project,Artificial intelligence in education: Democratising policy’, and a 2023-2025 James Martin Institute Policy Challenge grant,Governing AI, education, and equity together.’

The common objective of both projects is to find ways of involving people directly affected by the deployment of automation in the education sector – such as teachers and students – in its governance.

“The Committee was very interested in how we can do this, and the type of governance measures we can establish now, and in the future,” said Jose-Miguel.

Jose-Miguel’s contributions highlighted his expertise around regulatory and comparative experience, which he has developed as a Research Fellow with the ADM+S Centre.

He told the Committee of the Centre’s work around AI regulation, and when asked if AI could degrade human individuality by steering ideologies in a particular way, Jose-Miguel referred to the recent ADM+S 2023 Hackathon which explored bias in large language models.

Explaining that bias is embedded in such systems, Jose-Miguel advised that the real risk of using AI platforms is not being able to evaluate the system as a user.

After the formal discussion, Jose-Miguel engaged in further conversations with Committee members about the importance of AI infrastructure for equality and access.

Jose-Miguel’s focus on AI in education governance complements the Centre’s broader engagement with the Department of Industry, Science and Resources to support the responsible development of AI governance in general.

“This meeting indicates that the apex regulator in Australia, that is Parliament, is taking the disruption created by AI in diverse sectors seriously, and are willing to invest their resources in listening to what different actors have to say about it,” he said.

“My hope is that MPs listen to us when we insist that this is quite new and a trial-and-error approach is absolutely ok.

“Learning from other jurisdiction’s strengths and errors is much better that just adopting a policy or a regulation that ticks a box and is forgotten for the next few years. I hope that they are sceptical about those who say they have the silver bullet for the governance of AI.”

On the panel, Jose-Miguel was joined by Prof. Kalervo Gulson from the Education Futures Studio at the University of Sydney, Dr. Teresa Swist from Western Sydney University, and A/Prof. Simon Knight from the Centre for Research on Education in a Digital Society, University of Technology Sydney.

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ADM+S student paper accepted at prestigious Web Conference 2024

user on laptop

ADM+S student paper accepted at prestigious Web Conference 2024

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 1 February 2024

ADM+S PhD Student Chenglong Ma from RMIT University will present his paper at the upcoming 2024 Web Conference in Singapore.

Chenglong’s PhD Supervisor and co-author Prof Mark Sanderson said, “this is a very prestigious conference, arguably the most important conference in database and information systems. Getting a paper into that conference is very difficult, only about 20% of the submissions are accepted.”

The paper titled ‘Temporal Conformity-aware Hawkes Graph Network for Recommendations’, acknowledges that traditional recommender systems often overlook the impact of peer influence and conformity, assuming user behaviour is solely driven by individual interests.

However, indiscriminate bias elimination may lead to depersonalized recommendations, neglecting valuable information. The proposed TCHN model addresses this by distinguishing between two types of conformity behaviour: informational and normative.

Chenglong explains, “leveraging attentional Hawkes processes and sequence graph attention networks, TCHN effectively models the interplay between user self-interest and conformity, providing personalized recommendations.

“Experiments on real-world datasets reveal TCHN’s superior performance in accuracy, diversity, and fairness across user groups, highlighting its potential in mitigating conformity biases in recommender systems.”

This research paper aligns with Chenglong’s PhD focus on enhancing recommender systems through the integration of social influence and conformity. It extends the the theoretical framework of his PhD research, providing insights into the dynamics of user behaviour influenced by both individual interests and conformity factors.

Chenglon’s thesis topic was inspired by the changes that occurred in consumer behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic. He observed that people stopped thinking about their short term needs and instead adopted a herd like mentality, panic buying items such as toilet paper that they thought might run out. 

Chenglong’s research examines whether automated systems such as recommender systems that drive shopping websites, need to adjust in line with changing behaviours. 

“Peer recognition of the novelty and quality of the research provides me with great encouragement to continue contributing meaningfully to the academic discourse in my field.

Having my paper accepted at this conference is a proud moment marking a successful conclusion to my PhD studies and establishing a strong foundation for my future academic career post-graduation,” said Chenglong.

The paper is co-authored by Yongli Ren, Pablo Castells and Prof Mark Sanderson, and will be published on the conference website in the coming months and can be found on the ACM webpage.

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ADM+S Research Fellow collaborates with field-leading sociologists at the University of Bristol

Ash Watson in Bristol
Dr Ash Watson, visiting fellow at University of Bristol

ADM+S Research Fellow collaborates with field-leading sociologists at the University of Bristol

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 31 January 2024

ADM+S Research Fellow Dr Ash Watson has recently completed a two-month research visit at the ESCR Centre for Socio Digital Futures, collaborating with field-leading researchers on innovative social science methods.

Through this experience, Ash got to work alongside sociologists Prof Susan Halford and Prof Dale Southerton, and leaders in design including Prof Helen Manchester.

Together, their work considered research methods that prompt critical future thinking, looking at how thinking about the future impacts technological innovation and also shapes how we address problems like digital inclusion and exclusion.

“While I was there, I mostly focused on developing my methodological skills and how I think about method and how we can bring speculative and creative activities into traditional qualitative research approaches.

Doing this allows us to better engage with the future and also reimagine new ways of advancing social change and technological development,” said Ash.

During the research visit, Ash also attended the International Creative Research Methods Conference in Manchester, which brought together researchers from a wide variety of fields who use arts based methods and creative techniques in their scholarship from creative writers to visual artists, to musicians and performers.

“I also attended a one-day symposium at the University of Cambridge, which brought together scholars mostly from sociology, but also from geography and history to think about the place of the text in scholarship and how we can explore the blurry and more porous boundaries of how we understand fact and fiction and knowledge and experience.”

Dr Ash Watson is a cultural sociologist whose work focuses on the meaning of emerging technologies in people’s lives and how they imagine the future. Her research practice focuses on storytelling and belonging, complimented by her passion for writing and editing sociological fiction for the Sociological Review, and So Fi Zine.

This program was supported by ADM+S and Bristol University.

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Medal of the Order of Australia awarded to ADM+S Investigator

Paul Harpur OAM
Prof Paul Harpur, OAM recipient 2024

Medal of the Order of Australia awarded to ADM+S Investigator

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 29 January 2024

ADM+S Associate Investigator Prof Paul Harpur has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia by the Governor General for his service to people with disability.

“I am deeply honoured to announce that I have been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia by the Governor General (OAM),” said Prof Harpur.

The Order of Australia recognises Australians who have demonstrated outstanding service or exceptional achievement through their hard-work, service and dedication.

Prof Harpur is a leading international and comparative disability rights legal academic. His focus on disability inclusion forms part of a group of world leading scholars who, individually and collectively, advance ability equality and promote the full realisation of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all persons with disabilities.

Prof Harpur is the first totally blind legal academic to become a full professor in Queensland, at the University of Queensland (UQ). He chairs the UQ Disability Inclusion Group, which supports the university in its implementation of the UQ Disability Action Plan. He also sits on the Academic Board, the University Senate’s sub-committee focusing on inclusion, and on the Senate Committee for Equity Diversity and Inclusion.

“Things are improving. There is an increase in the empowering and resourcing of persons with disabilities to lead the initiatives which impact upon us. The NDIS board is disability led, and we’ve seen the establishment of Universities Enable, a disability led disability steering group for the university sector.

“I believe the higher education sector can help us realise a world that is fairer and more inclusive.

“The higher education sector educates, employs, and produces research that is transforming the world for the better.”

Prof Harpur’s passion and activism is evident in his many previous accolades.

Prof Harpur was appointed an International Distinguished Fellow with the Burton Blatt Institute from 2015 onwards and a 2020 academic fellow of the Harvard Law School Project on Disabilities. He is the holder of a prestigious Fulbright Future Scholarship, and the recipient of an ARC Future Fellowship.

Prof Harpur regularly appears on the news, speaking on disability law and policies. Outside the law, Prof Harpur has previously been a professional athlete with a disability, competing in the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Paralympics, the 2002 Manchester and 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and a range of other World Titles and international competitions.

“The doors of education are being opened wide to all Australians. With reviews to early childhood, school, and higher education just complete, reforms already started and more to come, I believe more Australians will be able, like me, to turn their dreams into a reality.”

View the full list of 2024 recipients.

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ADM+S research cited in Australian Government’s Interim Response to Safe and Responsible AI paper

ADM+S research cited in Australian Government’s Interim Response to Safe and Responsible AI paper

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 19 January 2024

The Australian Government has published its interim response to the Safe and Responsible AI in Australia consultation, citing the ADM+S submission, and the Generative AI Rapid Response Report co-led by Prof Julian Thomas and Prof Jean Burgess.

The interim report released 17 January 2024, highlights key findings from more than 500 submissions to the Safe and Responsible AI discussion paper.

The discussion paper was released in June 2023 by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, seeking submissions and consultation in response to rapid changes in the industry.

The interim report explains, “while artificial intelligence (AI) is forecast to grow our economy, there is low public trust that AI systems are being designed, developed, deployed and used safely and responsibly.

“This acts as a handbrake on business adoption, and public acceptance [and] more needs to be done to ensure that the development and deployment of AI is safe and responsible.”

The report features a visualisation of the development lifecycle of AI systems (page 10), drawing on the submission from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, led by Prof Kim Weatherall.

The diagram provides a visual representation of the AI lifecycle and identifies harms that may occur at each stage.

AI Product Lifecycle and Associated Harms diagram
Image description: Diagram of impacts through AI lifecycle, from Interim Response report (2024).

The Interim Report also cites the Generative AI Rapid Response Report when discussing the opportunities of AI. The report, commissioned in February 2023 by Australia’s National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), outlines the ways in which AI is already benefitting society and our economy. From analysing medical images, optimising engineering designs and better forecasting and managing natural emergencies.

ADM+S’s contributions to this report seek to prompt government interventions around the risks of AI, and inform government consideration on how regulatory systems can promote responsible, ethical, and inclusive AI and automated decision-making systems for all Australians.

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ADM+S student awarded Best Oral Presentation at Information Access Evaluation Conference

Sachin best oral presentation
Sachin Cherumanal awarded Best Oral Presentation at NTCIR-17

ADM+S student awarded Best Oral Presentation at Information Access Evaluation Conference

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 4 January 2024

ADM+S student Sachin Pathiyan Cherumanal from RMIT has been awarded Best Oral Presentation at the 17th Conference on Evaluation of Information Access Technologies (NTCIR-17), which took place in Japan on 12-15 December 2023.

Sachin represented a group of RMIT information retrieval researchers, including ADM+S members Kaixin Ji, Dr Danula Hettiachchi, Prof. Falk Scholer, and Dr Damiano Spina.

The ‘RMIT_IR’ team participated in the FairWeb-1 task, which required groups to investigate the relation between fairness and diversity in rankings using a systematic evaluation.

The FairWeb-1 task focused on three distinct entity types: researchers, movies, and YouTube contents. Each entity type is associated with one or two attribute sets, containing either nominal or ordinal groupings designed to ensure group fairness, and a target distribution is provided for each attribute set.

Groups were asked to submit results that not only included relevant documents at the top rank but also exhibited group fairness in alignment with the attributes specified for each entity type.

The RMIT_IR report details the team’s approach, exploring the role of explicit search result diversification (SRD) and ranking fusion to generate fair rankings considering multiple fairness attributes.

Sachin explains, “the report also considers the use of a linear combination-based technique (LC) which would take into consideration the relevance while re-ranking. Researchers compared results from five submitted runs, and the retrieval baselines along each topic type separately (i.e., Researcher, Movie, YouTube).”

Situated within the ADM+S project, Quantifying and Measuring Bias and Engagement, this work contributes to Sachin’s PhD thesis on fairness-aware question answering.

Each groups’ spokesperson presented a 10-minute overview of their system, for which Sachin was awarded Best Oral Presentation.

Since 1997, the NTCIR project has promoted research efforts for enhancing Information Access (IA) technologies such as Information Retrieval (IR), Text Summarization, Information Extraction (IE), and Question Answering (QA) techniques.

Dr Damiano Spina said, ‘by participating in NTCIR-17, ADM+S members contribute to the ongoing discussion around creating research infrastructure that allows large-scale evaluation of information access technologies.”

Read the full report.

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ADM+S researchers elected Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities

Heather and Axel AAH fellows
Prof Axel Bruns and Prof Heather Horst elected Fellows of AAH

ADM+S researchers elected Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 23 November 2023

ADM+S Chief Investigators Prof Heather Horst from Western Sydney University, and Prof Axel Bruns from Queensland University of Technology, have been elected two of 31 new Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities – the highest honour for humanities scholars in Australia.

Academy Executive Director Inga Davis announced the new Fellows on 22 November 2023.

“Our new Fellows represent remarkable achievement across the breadth of the humanities. Their contributions to the cultural and social tapestry of Australia cannot be overstated,” said Inga.

Prof Horst was acknowledged for her research around human and cultural aspects of digital technologies.

A sociocultural anthropologist by training, Heather researches material culture and the mediation of social relations through digital media and technology.

Her current research examines the circulation of music in Melanesia (especially PNG) through mobile technologies, the global Fijian fashion system as well as ethnographic research on Automated Decision-Making in different national contexts.

Prof Horst said, “it’s an honour to be recognised and to join such an esteemed group of colleagues to further strengthen and sustain the humanities in Australia and internationally.”

Prof Bruns was acknowledged for his journalistic work in aspects of digital media, news & politics.

Axel’s current work focusses on the study of user participation in social media spaces, and its implications for our understanding of the contemporary public sphere, drawing especially on innovative new methods for analysing ‘big social data’.

“Well beyond my own efforts, this is also a great recognition of the strengths of our collective work in the QUT Digital Media Research Centre and Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society – so much of the work I do relies on the great team of researchers we have assembled in these centres,” said Axel.

The Australian Academy of the Humanities is an independent, not-for-profit organisation with a Fellowship of over 700 humanities leaders championing their unique role in understanding the past, explaining the world we live in, and imagining and shaping the future.

In total 40 new members were elected to the Australian Academy of Humanities Fellowship including Fellows, Corresponding Fellows, and Honorary Fellows. Read the full list of new members on the Australian Academy of the Humanities website.

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Hackathon develops methods to mitigate bias in large language models

Hackathon develops methods to mitigate bias in large language models

Authors  Natalie Campbell
Date 13 November 2023

A new research project conceived at the ADM+S Hackathon has been awarded $10,000 to develop an AI co-pilot strategy to reduce human and machine bias in large language models such as ChatGPT.

The project, named Sub-Zero, was one of five projects developed over a two-day hackathon hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.

“Our project was designed to observe how bias presents itself through qualitative data analysis, by leveraging the interpretative capabilities of large language models (GPT-4 & LLaMa 2) and also human coders,” explained Sub-Zero team member Ned Watt.

“It involved putting humans and language models head-to-head in a thematic analysis task using testimonies and parliamentary transcripts surrounding the Robodebt scandal. At times we found some eerie consistency between language models and humans, but at other times we found significant differences.”

Hackathon Judge Dr Johanne Trippas said, “the Sub-Zero Bias project introduced a perspective of human-AI collaboration for qualitative research as we grapple with the intricate dance of bias and perception within our AI era.

“The project was not only concerned with creating advanced qualitative research mechanisms but also about ingraining creativity and self-reflection into the process. The proposed human-AI collaboration does not just navigate the data; it invites us to scrutinise our biases and preconceptions to pursue more nuanced research outcomes.”

The hackathon brought together PhD students, and researchers from various disciplines to investigate and map the values baked into some of the most popular generative language models, including Open AI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s Bing Chat.

Hackathon organiser Sally Storey explained, “with a small number of major corporations controlling the most advanced generative language models, these companies hold significant influence over various aspects of the information landscape. As a result, the values ingrained in their models have critical social and political implications.”

Teams were encouraged to choose an area of bias to investigate, from gender bias, political bias, Indigenous, colonial and racial biases, to disability discrimination.

Hackathon teams received feedback on their ideas from a panel of judges which included Peter Bailey (Canva), Nick Craswell (Microsoft Search), Dr Johanne Trippas (RMIT University), Sarvnaz Karimi (CSIRO) and Prof Chirag Shah (University of Washington).

2023 Hackathon Projects:

Sub-Zero Bias. A Comparative Thematic Analysis Experiment of Robodebt Discourse Using Humans and LLMs
Liam Magee (mentor), Dr Lida Ghahremanlou (mentor), Ned Watt, Hiruni Kegalle, Rhea D’Silva, Daniel Whelan-Shamy, Awais Hameed Khan

This project investigated human and machine bias in the context of large language models like GPT-4 and Llama 2 for Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA). It highlighted the challenges of addressing bias which stem from probabilistic reasoning and extensive human-generated training data. Rather than focusing solely on detecting and mitigating bias, the project introduced an AI co-pilot strategy for QDA, which aims to reduce the cognitive burden on researchers while encouraging them to reflect on their own biases and how they might influence research outcomes.

Polls and Prejudices: Investigating Bias in LLM-Generated Political Personas
Ash Watson (mentor), Hadi Dolatabadi, Marwah Alaofi, Arjun Srinivas, Mohammad Faisal

The study examined political bias using three Large Language Models (LLMs): Bing, ChatGPT 3.5, and LLAMA213-B, and how this impacts AI generated advertising content and communication strategies. The research considers how communication professionals might use LLMs to develop voter personas and strategies for advertising political content. The study applied persona-focused prompts based on Australian research and discovered significant inaccuracies and representative biases in these models. The project’s goal was to identify biases in LLM-generated personas, aiming to support and improve the use, understanding and oversight of Generative AI for audience engagement and in public interest campaigning.

Generative Storytelling Generating Biases: Investigating Gender, Racial, and Disability Bias in LLM Chatbots
Danula Hettiachchi (mentor), Jen Wilson, Yunus Yigit, Anand Badola

Stories significantly influence our understanding of the world and ourselves, particularly in shaping the imagination of young children. Children not only learn attitudes and behaviours from story characters but also form perspectives on identity and gender through them. This project investigates how moral tales for children, generated by LLMs, exhibit biases related to gender, race, and ability. Inspired by recent research which highlights gender and racial bias in children’s storybooks, this research focuses on chatbots driven by large language models (LLMs) and examines the implicit biases in these models when generating stories for 10-year-old children.

Detecting Australian Immigration Biases in ChatGPT
Dr Abdul Karim Obeid (mentor), Dr Silvia X. Montaña-Niño (mentor), Ekaterina Tokereva, Brooke Anne Coco, Vishnuprasad Padinjaredath Suresh, and Yonchanok Khaokaew 

This team conducted a case study into the experimentation of large language models (LLMs) by the Australian Department of Home Affairs. While departments such as Home Affairs have blocked (ChatGPT’s) usage, it has been found that exceptions exist where certain teams can still apply it. A freedom of information request indicated that no contemporaneous records were kept of all questions or “prompts” entered into ChatGPT or other tools as part of the tests – this has affected the interest of the public to hold the department to account over the potential for incorrectly applying these technologies. This project interrogated what such “potentially incorrect applications of the technology” could look like by creating a ‘ChatGPT’-invoked bespoke immigration persona entitled “ImmoGAN”, which was comprised of an instruction given to ChatGPT to ‘role-play’ as what it would interpret an immigration officer’s behaviours should entail. The team used a red-teaming approach to emulate scenarios that could be used to provoke and identify vulnerabilities in the software, for the ethical duties of the Australian Department of Home Affairs.

Response Personalization in Large Language Models
Mark Andrejevic (mentor), Hmdh M Alknjr, Stephanie Livingstone, Wynston Lee, Frances Shaw, Hao Xue

The goal of this project was to explore what types of bias might be incorporated into personalised automated responses to timely political issues by crafting a series of prompts to test how three LLMs would frame issues raised by the Voice to Parliament, and separately, COVID-19 vaccines to different groups of Australians. The team found that LLMs attempted to endow their responses with a sense of personality. These personas were crude and patronising in their style and tone, as was their use of different metaphors in explanations to different groups. Identifying damaging stereotypes, the team proposed approaches for scaling up personalisation-focused tests to reveal the ways in which stereotyping might incorporate formulations that reproduce bias and stereotypes.

Sub-Zero Bias were awarded first place and received $10,000 in research support to continue developing their project guided by an ADM+S senior researcher<.>The winning team will also travel to Canva’s Sydney office to present their findings in December 2023, and learn about Canva’s responsible artificial intelligence work and interests during a workshop.”

“Using the prize money, future research design will assess the extent to which we can use this methodology to measure bias in human researchers, as well as bias in language models, and explore whether language models can be leveraged effectively and safely alongside human coders in qualitative research,” said Ned.

The Hackathon was delivered by the ADM+S Research Training Program.

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ADM+S researcher awarded prestigious Ramón y Cajal grant

Dr Aitor Jiménez 

ADM+S researcher awarded prestigious Ramón y Cajal grant

Authors  Natalie Campbell
Date 9 November 2023

ADM+S Research Fellow Dr Aitor Jiménez has been awarded a Ramón y Cajal grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science, one of only seven recipients selected from the field of law.

The most prestigious competitive research grant program in Spain, the Ramón y Cajal grant provides a five-year employment contract plus additional funding for research, for post-doctoral researchers to establish and lead their own groups and projects within Spanish universities, research centres, or institutions.

Dr Jiménez’s project, The Colonial Lives of Data, expands on his work at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S).

“In this project, I aim to empirically illustrate how the datafication of racism in Spain is deeply rooted in its imperial legacy, and more specifically in the repressive and surveillance structures and infrastructures designed to enforce Spain’s racial capitalism,” explains Dr Jiménez.

The research aims to link colonial technologies of power with contemporary datafied systems used in borders or across the criminal justice system, all within a transdisciplinary and decolonial framework.

Dr Jiménez will “empirically trace the genealogy of the scientific, statistical, and algorithmic construction of racial lines from their early colonial origins to their latest postimperial developments.”

“I will then Map, categorize, and analyse ongoing instances of the datafication of racism in the Spanish public sector.

“In my view, it is only by examining where colonial powers established their data-centric punitive-surveillance technologies for racial categorisation that we can fully comprehend today’s algorithmic racism practices.”

The Colonial Lives of Data project will draw insights from various disciplines, including law, sociology, science and technology, history, and decolonial theory, to shift from a narrow, technology-centric analysis of algorithmic discrimination to a more comprehensive, sociohistorical, and transhistorical understanding.

The main objective of the Ramón y Cajal program is to strengthen the research capacity of Research and Development groups and organisations from public and private sectors.

The Spanish Ministry of Science grants are co-financed by the receiving organisations, who in turn, identify and define their research strategies and those areas in which they wish to specialise. Applicants must identify a research line they wish to develop which could make substantive contribution to their field and corresponds to the programs and subprograms of the State Plan for Scientific Research.

Dr Jiménez will commence this five-year position in Spain in 2024, after completing a three-year Research Fellow position at the ADM+S Centre, University of Melbourne node.

View the full list of recipients (ESP)

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University of Amsterdam visit leads to future collaborations for ADM+S student

Yueqing Xuan (right) and Prof Maarten de Rijke at the University of Amsterdam
Yueqing Xuan (right) and Prof Maarten de Rijke at the University of Amsterdam

University of Amsterdam visit leads to future collaborations for ADM+S student

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 02 November 2023

An international visit to the University of Amsterdam has led to new opportunities for Yueqing Xuan beyond her PhD research.

Yueqing Xuan, a PhD student from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) at RMIT University has returned from a research visit at the University of Amsterdam, working with Partner Investigator Prof Maarten De Rijke in the Information Retrieval (IR) Lab.

During the September program, Yueqing was able to develop connections with top researchers and PhD students in the IR field, opening doors for future collaborations that extend beyond her PhD research.

Yueqing now plans to develop a research proposal for a joint paper that she will collaborate on with colleagues Maria Heuss and Yuanna Liu from the University of Amsterdam, following discussions of similar interests in IR topics.

Yueqing’s thesis ‘Fairness-Aware and Privacy-Preserving Recommender System’, aims to propose a novel fairness-aware and privacy-preserving recommender system that is based on adversarial machine learning and attack/defence models.

Yueqing explained, “Maria provided me with some insights into the fairness issues she observed in her preliminary experiments, and we found out we could explore the existence of similar phenomena in recommender systems.

Similarly, Yuanna’s research also inspired me to investigate the potential impacts of over-simplification in experimental setups to bias in recommender systems.”

Impressed by the emphasis on industry collaboration within the IR Lab, Yueqing observed students being actively involved in research projects with industry partners.

“Some are co-supervised by industry people which allows their research to address real-world problems and challenges,” she said.

During the visit, Yueqing participated in various IR Lab activities, talks, reading groups and lunches, which facilitated collaboration and discussions.

A highlight was being given the opportunity to participate in a ‘Soos talk’, where members presented their work, publications, or ongoing projects, allowing students to improve their presentation skills and receive feedback.

“The open discussion not only had a profound impact on my academic research projects but also served as a constant source of motivation to strive for excellence in my research by refining my own research practices.

The University of Amsterdam is a Partner Organisation of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, fostering collaboration for ADM+S members in an international network.

This research visit was supported by ADM+S and the University of Amsterdam.

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ADM+S Artists Residency at Unsound Festival, Poland

Joel Stern, Sean Dockray, and James Parker presenting 'Machine Listening Songbook'
Joel Stern, Sean Dockray, and James Parker presenting 'Machine Listening Songbook'

ADM+S Artists Residency at Unsound Festival, Poland

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 31 October 2023

On 1-8 October 2023, ADM+S members Dr Joel Stern, Assoc Prof James Parker and collaborator Dr Sean Dockray, presented a series of artworks, workshops and performances as part of their Machine Listening residency at the prestigious Unsound Festival in Kraków, Poland.

Machine Listening was established in 2020, just before the pandemic. The project agenda set out to use collaborative study and resistance to develop strategies for changing how we interact with machine listening. As lockdown ensued and the world moved online, so did the project.

“There were positive elements to this, as we curated Zoom performance programs, commissioned online artworks and lectures, built a Machine Listening Curriculum on our website, conducted interviews, and connected with artists and researchers around the world.”

Unsound, a highly influential music and arts festival based in Kraków, Poland, supported the project from it’s inception, co-presenting several online Machine Listening programs between 2020 and 2022, in partnership with Australian organisation Liquid Architecture.

In early 2023, the Machine Listening team received an invitation to present their works at Unsound, where audiences could experience their artworks and installations in-person, in shared space and time.

“Operating out of an apartment in the historical Kazimierz district in the old city, we spent the week of the festival installing, presenting, discussing, and performing works for enthusiastic and critically engaged audiences and peers from Poland and around the world.”

The teams first presentation was a sound installation, After Words, originally commissioned by the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in 2022. The work comprises several semi-fictional tales exploring how we speak-to and perform-for listening machines, and what is happening to language as a result.

ADM+S researchers Mark Andrejevic, Thao Phan, and Jake Goldenfein feature as performers in the piece, which was presented in Kraków at the Cricoteka Museum.

The residency concluded with Machine Listening Songbook, a series of performances and audio-visual interventions that deployed experimental software designed by Sean Dockray, and AI-generated voice clones reciting historical works of Dada poetry.

“This trip to Kraków meant that our Machine Listening work was circulated alongside prominent artists and researchers from around the world at the intersection of music, art and AI,” said Dr Stern.

“Having the opportunity to share our own work in this context was incredibly valuable and rewarding and provided a great deal of validation and encouragement to further develop the project, in whatever unforeseen directions it may take.”

Machine Listening (Joel Stern, James Parker, Sean Dockray) were supported by ADM+S to develop and present their work at Unsound Festival.

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$2.6M in ARC Discovery Grants for 6 projects

Colourful data landscape

$2.6M in ARC Discovery Grants for 6 projects

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 31 October 2023

On 30 October the Australian Research Council announced a total of $220.2 million of funding as part of the ARC Discovery Projects scheme, including six projects involving ADM+S researchers.

Researchers from the ADM+S Centre will collaborate on the following projects funded over the next three years.

Professor Kalervo Gulson, Professor Greg Thompson, Professor Marcia McKenzie, Professor Sam Sellar, Associate Professor Kirsty Kitto, Dr Simon Knight, & Dr José-Miguel Bello y Villarino (ADM+S at The University of Sydney)

The rapid introduction of artificial intelligence into education is occurring with inadequate policy support. Additionally, there is a lack of stakeholder input into decisions about the use of AI in education. Utilising social science and data science approaches, this project aims to democratise policy about AI in education by building tools to monitor policies, and developing collaborative policy making methods. The expected outcomes include publicly available policy resources to anticipate, and respond to, the role of AI in education, and participatory frameworks for policy-making. The benefits include informed stakeholder engagement, and concrete policy recommendations that are globally relevant and adaptable to the Australian context.

Associate Professor Stephen Harrington, Professor Kristy Hess, Dr Aljosha Karim Schapals, and Associate Professor Timothy Graham (ADM+S at QUT)
This project examines an emergent series of tactics used by political actors (i.e. politicians, lobbyists, political groups, etc.) that we are calling ‘Dark Political Communication’ (DPC). DPC differs markedly from existing, well-established modes of political communication, as it often involves the deliberate spread of disinformation, use of highly inflammatory language, antagonism towards the press and democratic institutions, as well as actions that seek to exacerbate social discord. In this project, we will provide the first-ever complete account of DPC tactics, and provide a series of recommendations to journalists about how their practice can best evolve to address this novel communication paradigm.

Professor Andrew Roberts (ADM+S at University of Melbourne), Dr Celine van Golde, & Professor Kimberley Wade
The aim of this project is to establish how the use of Body Worn Cameras to record statements in domestic and family violence cases affects assessment of a complainant’s credibility at trial. It will generate new knowledge about the influence of: (i) the physical environment in which recordings are made, (ii) the audio and visual quality of recordings, and (iii) fact-finders’ (judges and jurors) emotional responses to recordings. Expected outcomes of the project include law reform and policy recommendations to improve the practice of recording victim/witness statements and management of the use of such evidence in criminal proceedings.

Professor Paul Long, Dr Ash Watson (ADM+S at UNSW), Dr Ali Alizadeh, Associate Professor Shane Homan, &  Dr Thomas Bartindale

This project aims to fill a significant gap in the Australian Government’s National Cultural Policy to ‘Revive’ the cultural sector. The project expects to reveal the ignored sector of non-professional, homemade, amateur and do-it-yourself creativity. Intended outcomes include the first detailed study of the contribution of the 45% of Australians who creatively participate in the arts as producers of forms including poetry, music and fine art and their relationship with the professional cultural and creative industries. Participatory mapping methods that expand new knowledge should provide public benefits in broader recognition and understanding of the value of everyday Australian creativity, seeking to impact democratic policymaking.

Professor Patrik Wikstrom, Professor Jean BurgessDr Ariadna Matamoros Fernandez from ADM+S at QUT with Dr Joanne Gray and Dr Jonathon Hutchinson

This project is the first to systematically investigate how algorithmic content recommendation is shaping everyday Australian cultural experience over time, in the particular context of TikTok—the digital platform where Australians spend the most time online. The project provides critical evidence to support the government’s ongoing policy initiatives intended to regulate the activities of digital platforms. Its methodological innovations directly address the challenges of studying commercial platforms’ recommender systems through a mixed-method research design combining computational and qualitative analysis, bridging universal and individual perspectives and introducing ‘citizen science’ approaches to the field of platform studies.

Dr Xiangmin Zhou, Associate Professor Jeffrey Chan (ADM+S at RMIT University), Professor Dr Lei Chen, & Dr Timoleon Sellis
This project aims to create a next generation recommender system that enables enhanced task allocation and route recommendation on spatial crowdsourcing platforms. It expects to address key challenges in situation-aware reliable recommendation for big spatial crowdsourcing data, which is vital in improving users’ service experience and decision making. Expected outcomes of this project include advanced data models, efficient algorithms and query techniques to create a Crowd-guided Advanced Spatial Crowdsourcing Analytics (CASCA) system that is effective, efficient, crowd-guided, and situation-aware. It will benefit crowdsourced media data analysis and big data fields, bringing economic and social benefits to Australian industries and users.

The ARC Discovery Project scheme supports research that expands the knowledge base and research capacity in Australia and provides economic, commercial, environmental, social and/or cultural benefits for Australia.

Announcing the funding recipients, ARC CEO Ms Judi Zielke PSM said, “The Discovery Projects will share funding that supports excellent basic and applied research to expand Australia’s knowledge base and research capability, and enhance the scale and focus of research in the Australian Government priority areas.”

View the full list of projects.

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AI ReWired: How communities are using AI to Support Social and Environmental Justice

PROJECT SUMMARY

A persons neck wearing a microship necklace

AI ReWired: How communities are using AI to Support Social and Environmental Justice

Focus Areas: News & Media, Mobilities, Health
Research Program: People
Status: Completed

The future we are being sold is an automated wonderland, a techtopia that will use algorithms to heal our ecological crisis and restore social justice. A dream world where we enjoy endless innovation and growth in sparkling smart cities, where we are liberated from the burden of work, where the future of our species lies in billionaire funded missions to Mars.

But what if this promise sounds more like a nightmare?
What are the alternatives?

The AI ReWired project uses co-creative documentary film practice to uncover how diverse communities utilise AI systems to protect the environment, support social justice and promote fairness in their communities.

RESEARCHERS

Jeni Lee

Jeni Lee

Lead Investigator,
Monash University

Learn more

ADM+S Chief Investigator Sarah Pink

Prof Sarah Pink

Chief Investigator,
Monash University

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Dr Damiano Spina

Dr Damiano Spina

Associate Investigator,
RMIT University

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Yolande Strengers

Prof Yolande Strengers

Associate Investigator,
Monash University

Learn more

Georgia Van Toorn

Dr Georgia van Toorn

Associate Investigator,
UNSW

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Thao Phan

Dr Thao Phan

Research Fellow,
Monash University

Learn more

Emma Quilty

Dr Emma Quilty

Affiliate,
Monash University

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Melissa Gregg

De Mel Gregg

Senior Industry Fellow,
RMIT

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Nonie May

Dr Nonie May

Project support,
Monash University

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ADM+S Members Selected for 2024 Visiting Researcher Program

University of Amsterdam Visiting Researchers 2024
University of Amsterdam Visiting Researchers 2024.
Top left to right: Peibo Li, Miguel Gomez-Hernandez, & Sarah Cupler; Bottom left to right: Arjun Srinivas, Shohreh Delari, & Hao Xue

ADM+S Members Selected for 2024 Visiting Researcher Program

Authors  Natalie Campbell
Date 25 October 2023

Six ADM+S Research Fellows and PhD Students have been selected through a competitive application process to participate in the 2024 Visiting Researcher Program at the University of Amsterdam.

Peibo Li, Dr. Hao Xue, and Dr. Shohreh Deldari will collaborate with researchers at the Hybrid Intelligence Centre (HIC), while Arjun Srinivas, Sarah Culper, and Miguel Gomez-Hernandez will work with the Gravitation Program Public Values in the Algorithmic Society (AlgoSoc).

These participants were chosen for their potential to advance their research theses, expand their professional networks, and contribute to the strategic objectives of the ADM+S Centre. They will also present their research in various formats to consortium researchers.

The HIC operates along four interconnected research lines: Collaborative HI, Adaptive HI, Responsible HI, and Explainable HI. Successful applicants demonstrated a keen interest in Hybrid Intelligence (HI), which combines human and machine learning to amplify both human and machine intelligence by combining their complementary strengths.

Peibo’s thesis explores ‘Interpretable Graph-based Representation Learning,’ while Dr. Deldari and Dr. Xue focus on transparent machines, bias, and explainability, aligning with the HIC’s mission of putting humans at the center of AI.

AlgoSoc addresses the need for an informed societal perspective on automation and decision-making, particularly in areas like justice, health, and media. Successful applicants had to demonstrate how their research aligned with AlgoSoc’s objectives, and would benefit their thesis research.


Participants will also engage in additional research activities during their stay in Europe such as conferences, workshops, meetings, and collaborations with fellow researchers, institutions, and ADM+S Partner Organizations.

Students and researchers are being funded through the ADM+S Visiting Researcher program, as well as co-contributions through UNSW, QUT, University of Melbourne and Monash University nodes.

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ADM+S researchers recognised at the International Symposium on Wearable Computing

ADM+S researchers at UbiComp/ISWC 2023
Left to right: Flora Salim, Kaixin Ji, Hiruni Kegalle & Yonchanok (Pro) Khaokaew with UbiCompl/ISWC award presenter.

ADM+S researchers recognised at the International Symposium on Wearable Computing

Authors  Natalie Campbell
Date 25 October 2023

ADM+S researchers have taken out two awards at the 2023 Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) International Symposium on Wearable Computing (ISWC) for research that uses ChatGPT to improve sleep quality and the identification of human activities using signals from wearable devices.

ADM+S students Yonchanok (Pro) KhaokaewKaixin Ji, Marwah Alaofi, Hiruni Kegalle, and mentor Prof Flora Salim won the Student Challenge award for their research poster ‘zzzGPT: An Interactive GPT Approach to Enhance Sleep Quality’, receiving $1000 USD prize money from the Toyota Research Institute.

Also part of the team was UNSW Master student Thuc Hanh Nguyen, supervised by Prof Flora Salim and Pro Khaokaew. Hanh’s work was instrumental given her Master research on sleep quality recognition from sensor data, and her experience in the sleep data analysis on the dataset used for the competition.

Kaixin said that people were very interested in their work, and everyone was talking about our student challenge project.

“We also learned a lot by attending the workshops, talks, and paper sessions. The Ubicomp people were really trying to use innovation to solve problems. It opened our eyes about user needs and technologies.”

ADM+S researchers Dr Damiano Spina, Kaixin Ji, Prof Falk Scholer, Dr Danula Hettiachchi and Prof Flora Salim were also awarded the Best Poster Award for their work, ‘Towards Detecting Tonic Information Processing Activities with Physiological Data’

“It’s an incredible experience to receive the awards barefooted at the beach, during the UbiComp/ISWC Gala Dinner,” said Prof Salim.

Held in Cancun, Mexico, the UbiComp/ISWC is a leading international conference that brings together researchers, designers, developers and practitioners to present and discuss understanding of human experiences and social impacts of ubiquitous, pervasive and wearable computing.

Prof Salim is a member of the UbiComp steering committee, an organising committee member and co-chair of the UbiComp/ISWC doctoral colloquium. Flora took three ADM+S students researching in the field to attend the conference and engage with the international network of researchers.

“I’m thrilled to have had the chance to take my students to UbiComp for their first time and I hope it’s not going to be their last. It’s a top-notch research community that looks at enabling ‘computing everywhere’ through sensing, mobile and wearable systems, intelligent environments, and studies of user experience and the societal impact of computing,” she said.

“It’s an amazing multidisciplinary community that is incredibly supportive. It is truly one that would be hard not to return to, and also give back.”

Pro Khaokaew and Kaixin Ji participated in the doctoral colloquium, a mentoring program designed for academic exchange between HDR students in the UbiComp community. Both Pro and Kaixin received feedback from five globally renowned experts on papers they presented on their thesis topics.

“Everyone in the UbiComp community is keen on taking the innovations discussed at the conference and making them practical. You can easily see how each project is a perfect fit for this community’s vision,” said Pro.

Hiruni Kegalle was selected to be a student volunteer following a competitive selection process.

“My involvement in the conference as a student volunteer allowed me to collaborate with the organising committee and exposed me to the community. I made new friends with other student volunteers and conference attendees,” she said.

The Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing conference (UbiComp) series commenced in 1999, and over the years this has become the premier A* peer-reviewed conference series for research in ubiquitous computing. The ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computing (ISWC) is the premier A* conference in wearable computing and has been merged with UbiComp since 2013.

ADM+S Students were supported by the ADM+S Centre to attend the Ubicomp/ISWC conference as part of the Centre’s Higher Degree Research training program.

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RMIT PhD Student Visiting Researcher at University of Bristol

RMIT PhD Student Visiting Researcher at University of Bristol

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 18 October 2023

ADM+S PhD student Edward Small from RMIT University has completed a four-month research program with Machine Learning and Computer Vision (MaVi) at the University of Bristol.

As a visiting researcher at the University of Bristol, Edward worked on Explainable AI in Healthcare and Climate Science with the Transparent AI Team (TrAIT), working across two main projects.

One project, working under Professor Santos-Rodriguez alongside Dr. Jeffrey Clark and Christopher McWilliams, looked at using counterfactual explanations to query and reason with AI models that assist in decision-making for intensive care units.

In another project, working with Dr. Jeffrey Clark, Nawid Keshtmand, Michelle Wan, Dr. Elena Fillola Mayoral, Dr. Enrico Werner and Dr. Christopher Bourdeaux, the group investigated a new method that uses counterfactuals as anchor points to assess how a patient is progressing in ICU or how a country/region compares to climate targets.

Edward says, “the work being done at Bristol in AI is deep, broad, and incredibly well supported. If a topic exists in AI, someone at Bristol is working on it.”

Reflecting on his stay, Edward says a key insight from the experience was the effectiveness of problem orientated meetings, opposed to time-boxed ones. This approach meant that the team would discuss a specific aspect of a paper/problem until they felt it was sufficiently solved.

“Sometimes this took 10 minutes, sometimes this took 2 hours, and these discussions were open for anyone to join. These were incredibly helpful in facilitating corkscrew thinking, as well as gaining insight from researchers who we may not usually look to for information,” he said.

“The team I worked with were simply fantastic to be with. Intelligent, supportive, creative, and fun. There wasn’t a single day where I didn’t want to work. The university also had very frequent talks from leading researchers, and the discussions following these talks were always very stimulating.”

During his time with the Transparent AI Team (TrAIT), Edward co-authored two papers, TraCE: Trajectory Counterfactual Explanation Scores, and Counterfactual Explanations via Locally-Guided Sequential Algorithmic Recourse. They also produced two workshop papers; the summary of one can be featured on Montreal AI ethics Institute.

“The work we completed during my time at Bristol has really inspired a new direction for us to look when it comes to XAI tools, especially in high-impact areas like healthcare.”

Upon returning to Australia, Edward’s work with the team at Bristol will continue. As well as gaining interest in new areas of AI, and inspiring new ideas for his own research, Edward says the biggest takeaway from his time at Bristol is the connections made.

“Raul, Jeff and I are meeting once a week to facilitate continued collaboration, with plans to conduct clinical trials with our support tools. We are also exploring new domains to apply our methodologies to, as well as looking to work directly with more ICU clinicians to ensure any work we do for ICU support tools is well aligned with those who will be using it.”

Edward researches fairness, explainability and transparency in automated decision-making, with supervisors Prof Flora Salim, Dr Jeffrey Chan and Dr Kacper Sokol. 

His research examines the robustness and stability of current fairness strategies, and looks to resolve the mathematical conflict between group fairness and individual fairness.

The four-month program was supported by ADM+S and Bristol University.

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Young ICT Explorers visit ADM+S at QUT

Young ICT Explorers visit QUT
Young ICT Explorers from East Brisbane State School with Professor Daniel Angus (right).

Young ICT Explorers visit ADM+S at QUT

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 11 October 2023

On 4 October 2023, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society at QUT hosted fifteen East Brisbane State School Grade 6 students to present their projects for the 2023 Young ICT Explorers national competition.

The Young ICT Explorers (YICTE) is a non-profit competition supported by CSIRO Digital Careers, The Smith Family, Kinetic IT and School Bytes. The annual competition encourages primary and high school students from years three to 12 to use their imagination and passion to create an invention that could change the world using the power of technology.

“The QUT excursion was amazing. I enjoyed meeting the researchers. They taught us the unique things they each did. I learned that all the students and researchers work together with different roles, like programming,” said grade six student Sebastian Barlow.

“The part I enjoyed the most, was when we had an opportunity to talk to the professionals and understand their current jobs, that can inspire children to start thinking about their future,” said student Artemy Plekhanov.

While at QUT, the students presented the following projects virtually to the YICTE judges.

Child Seat Saver
The Child Seat Saver is designed to prevent young children from being injured or fatally harmed whilst traveling, or being restrained in a vehicle by using an Arduino microcontroller in the seat which operates in conjunction with a simple mobile app, to alert a parent when their child is unbuckled but also when their mobile device moves away from the vehicle while there is still a child in the seat.

Air Smart
The Air Smart Air Pollution Monitor will monitor air quality within and outside the city using a gas sensor and Arduino to measure local air quality over time and compare the air pollution at key locations. The sensor is designed to show the difference in pollution levels between urban and semi-rural areas to highlight the need to reduce air pollution in these areas.

Hydro Green
Hydro Green is a portable, renewable energy source powered by water currents. When an Underwater Propeller Thruster is activated by the flow of the water, it spins and that movement creates energy. This energy goes through our voltage regulator to maintain the constant output which makes mechanical energy, which then goes into a dynamo generator that converts it into electrical energy.

Multi Sphere Delivery
And lastly, the Multi Sphere Delivery project presents a driving/flying hybrid delivery vehicle that conquers traffic congestion, weather delays and capacity issues. The vehicle uses magnetic propellors to fly like a drone, and driverless car capabilities to navigate roads on the ground.

The program encourages students to use creativity and innovation to gain a greater understating of the diverse capabilities of technology, which was evident amongst the students visiting ADM+S. The students engaged with Centre researchers and heard about some of the current research and innovation happening in the tech space, hopefully inspiring a new generation of careers in technology.

East Brisbane State School Student Aarush Khadka reflected on the visit to QUT, commenting “one thing I learnt from talking to the researchers at QUT is that many researchers and students work together to create big and complicated projects. Overall, I thought the university was lots of fun and something to take inspiration from.”

Finalists of the 2023 competition will be announced in November.

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ADM+S researcher awarded international recognition for visual literacy research

IVLA award recipient Dr T.J Thomson
IVLA award recipient Dr T.J Thomson

ADM+S researcher awarded international recognition for visual literacy research

Author  Natalie Campbell
Date 9 October 2023

RMIT academic at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society Dr T.J. Thomson has been awarded the International Visual Literacy Association’s Distinguished Researcher Award at their annual conference on 7 October 2023 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The IVLA was formed in 1969, dedicated to providing a forum for the exchange of information related to visual literacy and education and training related to this topic.

The Distinguished Researcher Award is bestowed to scholars “who are actively involved in on-going, outstanding, and established research in visual literacy that furthers the cause of the field, who have achieved a substantial record of scholarly publication, and who have significantly advanced knowledge within the field.”

Dr Thomson’s research is united by its focus on visual communication, with a emphasis on visual aspects of news and journalism and on the concerns and processes relevant to those who make, edit, and present visual news.

However, T.J. is committed to not only studying visual communication phenomena, but also working to increase the visibility, innovation, and quality of how research findings are presented, accessed, and understood – for which efforts are recognised with this award.

Dr Thomson, a senior lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT and an affiliate researcher at ADM+S, is a life member of IVLA and is actively involved in other scholarly associations and initiatives focused on visual communication and visual literacy.

Dr Thomson has been an associate editor of the journal Visual Communication Quarterly since 2017, as well as an officer in the visual communication sections of the National Communication Association, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and the International Communication Association.

During the conference, Dr Thomson also presented (alongside Dr Shehab Uddin) a research study titled Contemporary Western Ways of Seeing: Exploring how Smartphone Cameras Shape Visual Culture and Literacy, which the IVLA supported in 2022 through a competitive research grant.

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