Author Kathy Nickels
Date 30 March 2023

ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) researcher Dr Silvia Montaña-Niño and her colleagues have been awarded funding from Meta’s Foundational Integrity Research for their comparative study which seeks to counter misinformation in the Southern Hemisphere.

Meta’s Foundational Integrity Research request for proposals (RFP) was launched in September 2022 and attracted 503 proposals from 349 universities and institutions around the world. 

A total of $1,000,000 USD funding was awarded to research that would enrich the understanding of challenges related to integrity issues on social media and social technology platforms.

The project Countering misinformation in the Southern Hemisphere: A comparative study to be will be led by Dr Michelle Riedlinger (QUT) with colleagues Dr Silvia Montaña-Niño (QUT), Dr Marina Joubert (Stellenbosch University), and Assoc. Prof Víctor García-Perdomo (Universidad de La Sabana) was one of 11 projects to receive the funding. 

Dr Michelle Riedlinger from the School of Communication at QUT is leading the project.

“We have an amazing team of researchers from Australia, Latin America and Africa involved in this project and we’re keen to get started,” says Dr Riedlinger.

Author Kathy Nickels
Date 27 March 2023

Edward Small, higher degree research student at the ARC Centre for Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), RMIT University has been selected to undertake a four-month research program with Machine Learning and Computer Vision (MaVi) at the University of Bristol.

Applicants for this program are selected based on their academic excellence, previous experiences and references. 

Edward will receive supervision and support from Associate Professor Raul Santos-Rodriguez, to develop explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) tools in collaboration with Bristol General Hospital. 

Edward says he is incredibly excited to work with the University of Bristol and Prof. Raul Santos-Rodriguez. 

“Being a top 10 UK institution, and part of the Russel Group, Bristol has a strong track record in AI research that I hope to contribute to, and Raul is a leading researcher in human-centric machine learning and explainability,” he said

Author Kathy Nickels
Date 27 March 2023

Research Fellow Dr Kacper Sokol from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S), RMIT University has recently visited Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano, Switzerland to deliver training on machine learning explainability.

The training was developed to bridge the gap between the theoretical and practical aspects of explainability and interpretability of predictive models based on artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms, and builds upon Dr Sokol’s research in this area. 

Dr Sokol says that the course differs from others that commonly take an abstract approach. 

“It takes an adversarial perspective and breaks these techniques up into core functional blocks, studies their role and configuration, and reassembles them to create bespoke explainers with well-understood properties, thus making them suitable for the problem at hand,” he said.

Author Natalie Campbell
Date 27 March 2023

In February 2023, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society (ADM+S) partnered with Sydney Law School to deliver the Sydney Innovation Program, bringing together a diverse and interdisciplinary group of students to critically investigate automated solutions in finance, justice, sustainability, and healthcare.

ADM+S Research Fellow Dr Jose-Miguel Bello y Villarino was a co-convenor of the 2023 program, and a mentor for the students throughout the process.

“It does not stop surprising me how much participants evolve in their views, attitude and knowledge in such a short period of time,” he said.

To kick off the program, the ADM+S Centre provided information and materials to all participants to consider key priorities when developing automated solutions. ADM+S Chief Investigator Prof Kimberlee Weatherall also contributed to the program, highlighting a regulatory perspective on ADM innovations with a presentation on ‘Responsible Automation’.

Amongst the winning team of six was ADM+S alumni Arundhati Ajith. Arundhati’s team developed a proposal to incorporate automated decision-making (ADM) in beach lifesaving to identify rips, dangerous surf conditions and drownings. Their concept used computer vision and machine learning to assist lifesavers in their efforts to patrol hazardous conditions and struggling swimmers along expansive sealines; all critical issues contributing to Australia’s alarming number of ocean drownings.

Author Loren Dela Cruz
Date 24 March 2023

Launching this May at UNSW Sydney, a new exhibition More-than-Human draws on several research studies conducted at the ADM+S Centre’s UNSW node and the Vitalities Lab.

The exhibition uses multimodal arts-based and multisensory methods – both digital and non-digital – to highlight ways of knowing and being within and beyond the world of self-tracking apps, electronic medical records, and smart devices for documenting illnesses and promoting health and wellbeing.

Through installation artworks and multisensory displays, this exhibition seeks to attune visitors to their role in more-than-human ecologies and how their health and wellbeing and that of the planet is entangled. It shows that digital software, data, and devices are only part of the manifold ways that people learn about their bodies and their health. It acknowledges that human health is always more-than-human health, and that natural and human-made objects and spaces are intertwined.

Author Kathy Nickels
Date 23 March 2023

Millions of Australians are exposed to online advertising every day as they use social media and browse the internet. Advertisers on these platforms target audiences using a mix of data and profile information gathered from our activities online, but there is little publicly available knowledge about who is being targeted by which advertisers.

The Australian Ad Observatory project conducted at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) is working to understand the hidden world of advertising by asking volunteers to donate their Facebook ads.

Professor Daniel Angus, one of the Chief Investigators on the project, says the problem with online advertising is that it is hidden from public view, and so it may break the rules that have been put in place to prevent consumer harm, without being noticed.

“We are seeing ads that have been able to slip through the net because humans aren’t involved in making judgements,” he says. 

“The concern there is that if these ads can slip through the net, what other forms of advertising are also making their way through that, that maybe perhaps in violation of existing codes and practices?”

Over the past year more than 2,000 volunteers have donated their ads to the Australian Ad Observatory. 

This research benefits our understanding of platform-based advertising and is enabling independent research into the role that algorithmically targeted advertising plays in society.  

Online Casinos (ABC)

The ABC recently partnered with the Australian Ad Observatory to find gambling ads that were illegally targeting Australians on Facebook. This report asks who should be responsible for monitoring illegal online advertising and whether advertising rules can be better enforced by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACAM).  

Read more:  Online casinos based offshore are illegally targeting Australians on Facebook. Who is responsible?

The issue of gambling advertising was raised in parliament this week by Senator David Pocock who asked whether the government was aware that Australians are being exposed, on their social media feeds, to illegal advertisements from online casinos?

Senator Watt, currently representing the Minister for Communications, said “Australians are  concerned about the growing proliferation of gambling advertising on online platforms. There are of course particular concerns when it comes to the risk around those advertisements being accessed by children.”

Author Kathy Nickels
Date 8 March 2023

Researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) are uncovering vague and misleading green advertising on social media, with the help of the Australian consumers who are being targeted.

So far researchers have observed that many advertisers, especially those in the clothing and footwear, personal care, and food and food packaging industries, market themselves with green claims.

Many of these claims are vague and unsubstantiated, and have the potential to mislead consumers.

Professor Christine Parker, Chief Investigator at the ADM+S Centre, says the practice of making misleading claims about a product’s environmental sustainability, known as “greenwashing”, is likely to be on the rise.

Increased consumer demand for more sustainable products, increased understanding of the need for business to take action on the climate crisis, and the need to shift to a circular economy are likely to be driving green claims.

“Some advertisers are using vague wording alongside green imagery to give an impression of environmental action – but with no clear information and substantiation of exactly what the company is doing to achieve its environmental and climate promises or how the product is contributing to a circular economy,” says Professor Parker.

In a recent audit, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found that more than half of organisations advertising online made concerning claims about their environmental or sustainability practices.

The Consumer Policy and Research Centre (CPRC) found similar results in a 24-hour sweep of online advertising conducted last year. The CPRC also found that many consumers believe some authority is checking green claims before they are made – which is not in fact the case.