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Today's Topics:
1. Re: How can Local Government use AI to improve services? (David)
2. Sometimes I am surprised. (Antony Barry)
3. AI advances limited by electricity supply (Antony Barry)
4. Re: How can Local Government use AI to improve services?
(Marghanita da Cruz)
5. Re: Sometimes I am surprised. (Scott Howard)
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Message: 1
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 14:24:57 +1000
From: David <[email protected]>
To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [LINK] How can Local Government use AI to improve
services?
Message-ID: <7170952.9J7NaK4W3v@ulysses>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
On Thursday, 24 July 2025 10:35:53 AEST Tom Worthington wrote:
> Greetings from the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) where Tim Turner, is
> running a meeting on "How can the ACT Government use #AI to improve
> #government services?" organised by the Pearcey Foundation.
I believe I detect a certain eagerness among many organisations to jump abord
the AI bandwagon in order to be seen to be modern and "with-it", and supposedly
to improve productivity. But if the ACT (or indeed Federal) Governments are
considering AI, IMO the decision-makers had better be well aware of its' fiscal
& environmental costs, its' limitations & constraints, and its' inherent legal
traps for over-eager players.
In other words, an AI machine is neither intelligent or responsible despite the
mnemonic, it "hallucinates" and can produce nonsense or legally misleading
output, or in short, it's a machine.
DavidL
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 15:33:22 +1000
From: Antony Barry <[email protected]>
To: Link Link <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] Sometimes I am surprised.
Message-ID:
<caecotwy-kmaonex1vob0sbntxxevjkfrdgjasfdmz-vecrv...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Very occasionally I read something and my initial reaction is "that's
absurd" followed by "hang on a moment that's brilliant".
https://www.techspot.com/news/108732-google-using-two-billion-android-phones-detect-earthquakes.html?lctg=1980929&utm_source=digitaltrends&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:1980929&utm_campaign=DTDaily20250721
Tony
--
Mob:04 3365 2400 Email: [email protected], [email protected]
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 16:01:22 +1000
From: Antony Barry <[email protected]>
To: Link Link <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] AI advances limited by electricity supply
Message-ID:
<CAECOtWznfy6=r6pvzey+evclablym3khbqd5y08qubkba71...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
https://qz.com/eric-schmidt-ai-limit-chips-electricity?lctg=1980929&utm_source=digitaltrends&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:1980929&utm_campaign=DTDaily20250721
--
Mob:04 3365 2400 Email: [email protected], [email protected]
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 16:21:47 +1000
From: Marghanita da Cruz <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] How can Local Government use AI to improve
services?
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 7/25/25 14:24, David wrote:
> On Thursday, 24 July 2025 10:35:53 AEST Tom Worthington wrote:
>> Greetings from the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN) where Tim
>> Turner, is running a meeting on "How can the ACT Government use #AI
>> to improve #government services?" organised by the Pearcey Foundation.
> I believe I detect a certain eagerness among many organisations to
> jump abord the AI bandwagon in order to be seen to be modern and
> "with-it", and supposedly to improve productivity. But if the ACT (or
> indeed Federal) Governments are considering AI, IMO the
> decision-makers had better be well aware of its' fiscal &
> environmental costs, its' limitations & constraints, and its' inherent
> legal traps for over-eager players.
<snip> meanwhile (looking for NSW budget reference)
> The Australian Framework for Generative AI in Schools (the
> Framework)?seeks to guide the responsible and ethical use of
> generative AI tools in ways that benefit students, schools, and
> society. The Framework supports all people connected with school
> education including school leaders, teachers, support staff, service
> providers, parents, guardians, students and policy makers.
Are reports anymore than Lit Searches that sit on shelves?
But could there be value in editing books with AI and nodding to the
latest winner of the Miles Franklin award Using Google to Translate.
> Its protagonist, playfully named Xiang Lu, is working at Sydney?s
> Chinese consulate, but is fired when it emerges that he doesn?t speak
> Chinese and has been using Google Translate to do his job.
...ofcourse China rehoused (approximately 1.3 million) people according
to google AI who lost their homes in the building of the Three Gorges
Dam in 1998. Perhaps there is a use of AI at the afr...
> Xiang goes viral as #BadChinese, and is discovered by megalomaniacal
> film director Baby Bao, who whisks him away to Port Man Tou, one of
> the shoddily built ?ghost cities?
> <https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-s-infamous-ghost-cities-are-finally-stirring-to-life-20210906-p58pb4>
>
> that sprang up amid China?s 2000s property boom.
https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/monolingual-bad-chinese-author-wins-miles-franklin-20250724-p5mhf0
Marghanita
--
Marghanita da Cruz
Telephone: 0414-869202
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://ramin.com.au
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2025 16:33:37 +1000
From: Scott Howard <[email protected]>
To: Antony Barry <[email protected]>
Cc: Link Link <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [LINK] Sometimes I am surprised.
Message-ID:
<CACnPsNXOx4=WBB-Vf_0A9f-KADH9LaP7LbEuSe58wb=hxst...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
Spoken like someone that's never lived in an earthquake zone! (I used to
live a few hundred metres from the San Andreas Fault in Northern
California...)
The predecessor to this was an app that came out of UCB (Berkeley) in 2019
called MyShake - https://myshake.berkeley.edu/
I ran this app for a few years and the results were mixed - a few alerts
for quakes I didn't even feel, and no alerts for ones that were clearly
detectable, but the concept at least was a good one.
Google started adding the functionality a few years later, with similar
mixed results, although there were at least one or two occasions where it
gave moderate notice (several seconds or more) of a quake before I felt
anything.
That said, all of this was through a period when the area in California
where I lived (thankfully!) didn't have any earthquakes that were all that
significant, so it's hard to comment on how well it will work for a "big
one".
Scott
On Fri, Jul 25, 2025 at 3:43?PM Antony Barry <[email protected]> wrote:
> Very occasionally I read something and my initial reaction is "that's
> absurd" followed by "hang on a moment that's brilliant".
>
>
> https://www.techspot.com/news/108732-google-using-two-billion-android-phones-detect-earthquakes.html?lctg=1980929&utm_source=digitaltrends&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:1980929&utm_campaign=DTDaily20250721
>
> Tony
>
> --
> Mob:04 3365 2400 Email: [email protected], [email protected]
> _______________________________________________
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