Since the end of World War II, Australia has enjoyed an ideologically simple security environment: all its core allies have been liberal democracies, and all its foes have been illiberal. The United States, the architect …
Articles by: "Fergus Ryan"
China’s latest five-year plan enshrines artificial intelligence as a key driver of economic growth and technological innovation. While the United States still leads in frontier AI research and the most advanced models, China has focused …
Last week X’s head of product, Nikita Bier, made an allegation of enormous consequence with remarkable casualness: China controls millions of spam accounts used to censor the platform during periods of political unrest. Responding publicly …
‘AI safety’ has become a buzz-phrase in Silicon Valley, where tech companies use it to refer to artificial intelligence systems that reflect human values and protect human well-being. AI chatbots that encourage a person to …
There’s one thing China’s ambassador to Australia got right in a call to add artificial intelligence to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA): ‘China has always viewed Australia and China-Australia relations from a strategic and …
In 2024, during the fiercely fought US presidential election campaign, current US Vice President JD Vance made an extraordinary ultimatum: if Europe wanted the United States to remain committed to NATO, it should stop regulating …
As Australia debates the right cut-off age for social media use, let’s not forget there already is a cut off age—13. That’s the age most platforms set in their terms of service in compliance with …
In the global discussion around data privacy and security, much attention has been rightfully placed on the Chinese-owned platform TikTok, with concerns that the user data it collects is accessible to Chinese authorities. But the …
Despite numerous scandals and calls for it to be banned, TikTok, the Chinese-owned app, continues to enjoy immense popularity in Australia. ByteDance, the Beijing-based company that owns and controls TikTok, is currently under investigation by …
In 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the globe, China faced international scrutiny over its draconian control measures and the nature and origin of the pandemic. The Chinese Communist Party saw an urgent need …
In a welcome development last year, TikTok announced that it would start publishing insights about the covert influence operations it identifies and removes from its platform globally in its quarterly community guidelines enforcement reports. Since …
Hardly a day had passed after the government unveiled its initial draft of the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill 2023 when critics descended upon it. ‘Hey Peasants, Your Opinions Hell, your facts Are Fake News’, …