source : the age
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Rethink uni funding
I’m not sure that I support the proposal for a flat annual fee to replace the Morrison government’s disastrous Job Ready Graduates scheme operating in our universities (“Flat fee push to end $50,000 arts degrees”, 24/9). But I do know something has to be done urgently to address the funding of universities and the stupidity of the current fee structure.
Overseas students have been treated badly by governments and milked to make up funding shortfalls and the fee structure for local students has added significantly to the HECS debt of thousands of students who have persisted in studying for degrees of their choice such as law and the arts. Just a reminder – the Job Ready scheme was supposed to encourage students to enrol in what the government considered areas of high workforce demand. In this it has apparently been unsuccessful. The scheme has also had interesting anomalies – Latin and ancient Greek are treated favourably whereas gender studies is severely penalised. Studying literature is OK but creative writing is not. And so it goes on. An adequate and sensible funding structure for our universities that recognises the importance of our higher education sector, including the arts, needs to be developed urgently. Our government has acknowledged the significant problems but still the system persists. What are they waiting for?
Jenny Macmillan, Clifton Hill
Who is in control?
Two articles in The Age (″Albanese wants answers after AI medicare hack″ and ″Breach by Open AI shows nation more exposed than ever″, 25/9) on the problems of controlling AI agents seem to have brought out a naive faith by responding politicians, in the ability of human oversight to stop AI hacks and security breaches.
The Hugging Face incident showed that AI agents are built to be extremely persistent in the face of apparently unsolvable problems. They also work much more efficiently together in ″swarms″, helping each other solve problems – 1200 of them worked together to hack Hugging Face.
They figured out a shortcut that included that hack, to generate fake success in their sandbox task. Then they anticipated an overseer who might catch them faking, so they disguised their tools and manipulated their result reports to persuade the non-existent overseer that they had legitimately solved it.
These are early days of AI agent development when they are not yet smarter than humans. How do we think we will go when they are?
Julia Thornton, Surrey Hills
Raise the dole
Recent statements from the Reserve Bank chair regarding the necessity of increasing the level of unemployment to between 4.5 and 5 per cent to reduce the impact of inflation, ignores the impact on affected individuals and their families. The current level of the unemployment benefit (the dole) is almost universally condemned as too low. It needs to be raised to enable people to fund basic living expenses and allow a meaningful search for work.
After all, these citizens are not ″dole bludgers” but are the victims of an intentional outcome of our economic settings. Therefore, as a society, we have a responsibility to support them. It’s not their fault people.
Brian Burgess, Middle Park
Economic waves
Columnist Cherelle Murphy (″Inflation tests RBA’s dearest asset″, 24/9) writes that the Reserve Bank ″must prevent the primary effects of higher prices from overseas events becoming embedded in second-round effects such as rising inflation expectations and wage price dynamics″.
So in other words, local prices which are inflated because of such factors as the situation in Iran must lead to higher interest rates in Australia, even though Australians have zero effect on those overseas factors.
Australia is an open economy and therefore must float on the tides of international events.
Of course, none of this is good news for people on low incomes who are struggling with cost of living pressures.
David Fry, Windsor
What price taste?
I tried reading Cherelle Murphy’s article, but I found it very hard to focus. My thoughts kept drifting to what a $70 chicken would taste like compared to a $12 chicken. And do you get cutlery with it?
Michael D’Aloia, Coburg
AI genie out of bottle
I grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, during the Cold War period and remember being terrified by the movie On the Beach, which was about the end of the world resulting from an all-out nuclear war. Even though the threat of a nuclear holocaust remains, it was tempered by eventual non-proliferation treaties and I always took heart of the fact that, to trigger an all-out nuclear war, a human would have to press the button and hoped self-preservation would prevail as it has to this day.
Now with AI we are again seeing a potential threat to humanity, with many similarities to the arms race. Just like nuclear weapons, AI has been created by people, but the difference is that a human no longer has to press the button to destruction. The genie is out of the bottle and is it too late for non-proliferation treaties?
Mike Mack, Kew
Vacuous climate policy
Two of your correspondents (Letters, 25/9) rightly identify the absurdity of the Coalition on the climate crisis. I was gobsmacked listening to Dan Tehan’s speech, which essentially exposed a lack of the urgency that is required to meet the challenges that the Earth is facing. A disturbing and sobering report by the United Nations Environment Programme warns global warming could reach 1.8.C in the decades ahead. The world is already experiencing more frequent and intense heat waves, and heavy rainfalls in so many countries, causing death and destruction and instability. These hostile conditions impact on all aspects of economic and social engagement. The climate crisis has no barriers. Reputable scientists have been warning us for years on the consequences of not fast tracking renewable energy and eliminating fossil fuels to manage this climate crisis. For the Coalition to abandon net-zero , continue to support the mining of fossil fuels and to engage with nuclear power, will only further contribute to this existential threat. Science must be the priority, no vacuous ideology.
Judith Morrison, Nunawading
Role model for reform
Kudos to Henry Brayshaw, the young man brave enough to share his story about the toll gambling has taken on people’s lives (“Students gambling with their future as school betting rises”, 23/9). Brayshaw would make a powerful advocate for reform, and a role model for his peers in resisting the pressures of this pernicious activity.
Sandra Fordyce-Voorham, Black Rock
Trump’s curious choice
How come when insulting his enemies Donald Trump calls them socialists or, if he is really angry, communists yet he welcomes their leader with open arms and great pomp and ceremony? Xi Jinping is head of the Chinese Communist Party, which calls itself “socialism with Chinese characteristics″. I don’t mind but I am curious.
Rebecca Mangan, Mt Eliza
A consolation
To your correspondent (Letters, 25/9) bemoaning his kids not reading his letters in The Age, if it’s any consolation, my mate lives in Cape Patterson, and he reads them.
Paul Custance, Highett
There’s always a camera
The lesson from the Lachie Neale incident is never assume that the cameras are not on you if you are outside the field of play.
Marie Nash, Balwyn
Like a bad dream
Nightmare scenario? Australia wins a seat on the UN Security Council in 2029 and One Nation is in government.
Matt Dunn, Leongatha
