Communism

• There is, in fact, more than 100 years’ worth of Australian literature about AI and robotics.
• Nearly 2,000 such works are listed in the AustLit database, a bibliography of Australian literature that includes novels, screenplays, poetry and other kinds of literature.
• As part of an ongoing project, we are creating a comprehensive list of Australian literature about AI and robots.
• Here are five Australian literary works of particular relevance to national conversations about AI.

The Automatic Barmaid

The Automatic Barmaid is a short story by Ernest O’Ferrall, who wrote under the pen name “Kodak”. Like his contemporaries Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, Kodak was best known as a writer of comedic bush stories.

• The story concerns an automaton named Gwennie, who at first seems too good to be true, as she is cheaper and more efficient than a human barmaid.
• The Automatic Barmaid is a humorous depiction of robots as tempting and cheap but not always suitable replacements for human labour.
• The Automatic Barmaid shows how persistently sceptical we have been about our technologies over the last century, and how much we value human workers’ adaptability and resilience.

The Successors

• His 1957 short story The Successors begins with a general and a professor meeting while their planet – presumably Earth – is under attack from an unknown race of invaders.
• The professor muses that, in the end, the humans and the robots are not so different after all.

• The Successors explores an as yet unachieved scenario.
• Most current AI systems are what we call “narrow”, and can only complete a limited number of tasks in specific areas.
• Although many people believe that AGI is still a long way into the future, thinking about extreme future scenarios, like the one in The Successors, can help us identify where we might need to mitigate risk.

Moon in the Ground

• Keith Antill’s novel Moon in the Ground was published by pioneering Australian science fiction press Norstrilia in 1979.
• Moon in the Ground speaks to the longstanding connections between defence and robotics, autonomous systems and AI – connections that Australia is now looking to strengthen.
• However, as Moon in the Ground shows, chasing that power too keenly can be destructive.

The Tic-Toc Boy of Constantinople

• The Tic-Toc Boy of Constantinople, a short story by Anthony Panegyres, was published in 2014 as part of the steampunk collection Kisses by Clockwork.
• The story centres on Phyte, a robot who looks and acts like a human boy, apart from having a metal plate on his chest and occasionally producing steam.
• The Tic-Toc Boy of Constantinople encourages us to think about how bodies are central to our experiences of the world.

Clade

James Bradley’s 2015 cli-fi novel Clade follows a family from the near future living in an increasingly precarious and unpredictable world faced with ecological collapse. AI plays a relatively minor part in the narrative, but when it does appear, it is represented ambivalently.

• The sims can read and mimic the responses of people who interact with them.
• The customers start making the dead less like they were and more as they would have preferred them to be.
• Dylan faces his own ethical dilemma when he comes across a request to build a sim of an ex-girlfriend’s brother.
• Clade encourages us to think about where our boundaries might be and why.

Making sense of the world

Humans tell stories to make sense of the world. Literary representations have much to tell us about how we understand and respond to the rapidly advancing and seemingly unpredictable technology of AI. To develop AI and robots that best respond to the needs of Australians, we can learn a lot from reading our own literature.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• While the result may be a foregone conclusion, the election offers an important glimpse into the Kremlin’s domestic challenges as it continues a war against Ukraine that recently entered its third year.
• As an expert on Russian politics, I have identified three key developments worth paying attention to during and after the upcoming election.

1. Don’t mention the war (too much)

• With Russian domestic media and politics all but gutted of dissenting voices, the war has become the organizing principle of post-2022 Russian politics, shaping all major policies and decisions.
• Yet, while the context of the war looms large, its role is largely implicit rather than occupying center stage.

• There are relatively few ardent supporters of the war, outweighed by a more general sense of fatigue among the public.
• Yet the war is putting pressure on the government’s ability to juggle ensuring a disengaged population and bolstering support for a grinding war that demands unprecedented resources.
• That choice surprised some insiders, who expected Putin to weave his announcement into a high-profile, choreographed event focusing on domestic achievements and not the ongoing war.

2. Pressure to deliver results for Putin

• For officials, the election is a litmus test for their ability to muster administrative resources and deliver Putin an electoral windfall.
• Most reports suggest the Kremlin is hoping to engineer that the turnout is at least 70%, with around 80% of the vote for Putin – which would surpass his 76.7% share from 2018.
• For observers of Russian politics, what will be of interest is not the result itself, but how the result is produced during wartime conditions.
• Moreover, political disengagement and the certainty of a Putin victory means that interest in voting is at an all-time low.

3. Silencing political opposition

• The death of longtime Putin critic Alexei Navalny in February 2024 was a huge blow to the opposition but is representative of the state of political repression in Russia.
• Since 2018, some 116,000 Russians have faced political repression.
• Yet the scale of public mourning for Navalny and the enthusiasm for Nadezhdin reveal that despite draconian wartime censorship and repression, there remains a sizable bloc of Russians eager for authentic political alternatives.

Adam Lenton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• The only real question is whether he will receive more than 75% of the vote.
• It could be tempting to see these results as a sign of the strength of the Russian system.
• It is also increasingly dysfunctional, trapped in a cycle of poor quality and weak governance that cannot be solved by one man, no matter how much power he has.

The constitutional dark arts

• This centralisation is the product of an increasingly common logic that I call the “constitutional dark arts”.
• This logic generally holds that democracy and rights protection are best guaranteed in a constitutional system that centralises authority in one elected leader.
• This line of thinking is present in many populist, authoritarian countries, such as Hungary and Turkey.
• Thirty years later, however, we can see how this use of the “constitutional dark arts” backfired spectacularly.

Poor quality governance in Russia

• Although this centralised system has allowed Putin to dominate politics, it fosters weak and poor governance, particularly outside Moscow.
• First, centralised decision-making in Russia is often made using incomplete or false information.
• It was based on intelligence that the operation would be over quickly and Ukrainians would likely welcome Russian forces.
• In his February 29 address to parliament, Putin tacitly acknowledged these problems, promising new national projects to improve infrastructure, support families and enhance the quality of life.

An increasingly dysfunctional Russia

• Externally, this centralisation is likely to produce an increasingly unpredictable Russia, led by a man making decisions on the basis of an increasingly paranoid world view and incorrect or manipulated information.
• It will likely foster harsher repression of any dissenting voices inside Russia, as well.
• We are also likely to see an increasingly dysfunctional Russia, one in which roads, housing, schools, health care and other infrastructure will continue to deteriorate, particularly outside of Moscow.

William Partlett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• CHARLESTON, SC, Feb. 21, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) and Competitive Markets Action (CMA), recently announced the recipients of their 2023 Congressional Awards and honored U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-SC, with their Leadership Award for her work to reform the U.S. Dept.
• Mace is the lead sponsor of the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act, H.R.
• Mike Lee, R-UT, Rand Paul, R-KY, Cory Booker, D-NJ, and Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, to reform the U.S. Dept.
• The foundation of the Organization for Competitive Markets is to fight for competitive markets in agriculture for farmers, ranchers and rural communities.