Replies to post #448781 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Australian pluses; Australia signs up to the Climate Club alliance, Albanese announces in Berlin

"Australian disgrace: ‘Crude and cruel’ scheme: robodebt royal commission report recommends civil and criminal prosecutions"

By Europe bureau chief Steve Cannane in Berlin
Posted 7h ago, , updated 1h ago


Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz shake hands in the yard of the Chancellery.
(Reuters: Fabrizio Bensch)

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that Australia has signed up to the Climate Club, an alliance of nations that aims to decarbonise industry and pursue net zero emissions by 2050.

Key points:

* Australia and Germany look to extend their partnership to fight climate change further

* An aircraft will be deployed to Germany to help defend logistics hub essential to Ukraine

* Anthony Albanese will now head to the NATO summit

The Climate Club was formed last year and is an initiative of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He welcomed Australia's decision to join the group that includes the US, the UK, France, Italy and Canada.

"I am delighted that Australia has announced it will join the Climate Club," Mr Scholz told a media conference in Berlin.

He said that Germany and Australia were already cooperating on the production and transportation of green hydrogen, and he looked forward to extending the partnership even further.


Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz review the troops during a meeting in Berlin.
(Reuters: Fabrizio Bensch)

"We also want to expand our existing energy partnership and develop it into a climate partnership in order to fight climate change even more effectively."

The prime minister said he was "pleased and proud" that Australia was signing up to the Climate Club.

"No challenge is more pressing than that posed by climate change,"
Mr Albanese said.

"Australia and Germany are now united in our deep commitment to tackling climate change and I commended Chancellor Scholz on his development of Germany's Climate Club and was pleased to confirm that Australia will join that high ambition initiative."

Mr Albanese said he hoped that collaboration between the two countries would lead to more jobs in Australia.

"My government has set the ambition for Australia to be a renewable energy superpower, but we also want to be a renewable energy export superpower, working with countries like Germany on the industries of the future," he said.

The comments came after the pair held wide-ranging talks at the Chancellery in Berlin .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-10/albanese-announces-step-up-in-climate-defence-ties-with-germany-/102585276 . Also on the agenda were issues relating to global security and defence procurement.

Australian weaponry announced to support Ukraine

Earlier in the day the prime minister announced a deal that would see Australia provide over 100 Queensland-built heavy weapons carriers to the German Army.

Both leaders are about to head to the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Mr Albanese told the media conference that Indo-Pacific nations like Australia had an important role to play in defending democratic values and supporting Ukraine.

Europe would be 'cheering' on Australian fighter jets sent to Ukraine, according to NATO host

[Two RAAF F/A-18A Hornets in close formation during Exercise Pitch Black over northern Australia in August 2014.]
Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been invited to join crucial talks in Lithuania, after $110 million in military
and humanitarian support for Ukraine.
Read more > https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-10/nato-australia-albanese-lithuania-gabrielus-landsbergis/102577626

"Upholding the international rules-based order is more important than ever in the wake of Russia's illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine," he said.

Mr Scholz said it was a "very good sign" that NATO had invited its partners from the Indo-Pacific region to the summit.

"We share insights, we share positions, and this is why I think it is important
that we need to continue the cooperation that we've had," he said.

"For Germany and other NATO partners, it's become a very common practice to deploy their own ships, vessels or aircraft to the Indo-Pacific for exercises to develop common understanding and so forth, and we will continue to do that."

Following the talks, the prime minister announced what he described as a "new Australian contribution to supporting security in Europe".

An E-7A Wedgetail early warning aircraft will be deployed to Germany. Mr Albanese said the project was aimed at helping Ukraine.


Prime Minister Albanese announced an E-7A Wedgetail would be deployed to Germany to aid Ukraine's war efforts.
(Australian Defence Force)

"This aircraft will help to protect the multinational logistics hub that is essential to the flow of military and humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukraine," he said.

"This deployment includes up to 100 crew and support personnel from Australia. It will be deployed for six months and will operate in European airspace and we're grateful to Germany for hosting this deployment."

Australia can and should give Ukraine more military support
Australia's geographic distance is no excuse for weak support to a state attempting to counter an illegal and
devastating invasion. We can, and should, be doing considerably more to counter Russia's attack on Ukraine.
Read more > https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-28/australia-not-giving-ukraine-military-support-needs-retired-jets/102529920

Mr Scholz was full of praise for Australia's commitment to Ukraine.

"For us, it is truly very important to know how much Australia supports Ukraine. And we're doing this together with many other the partners in the world," he said.

"We will fully support this project to manage it well. It's a very important step and a good one."

While Germany's leader considers the offer of an early warning aircraft to be generous, it's not the type of military equipment that Ukraine has been publicly lobbying Australia to provide.

In May, Ukraine's Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov released a video message calling on Australia to send more armoured personnel carriers including Bushmasters and Hawkeis.

Dear Australian friends,

Throughout history you have repeatedly proven that Australians are a nation of freedom-loving warriors who always stand up to a bully.

You are 15 thousand kilometers away, yet we are very close in our shared values and readiness to defend them.

That's… pic.twitter.com/SXeQ77dH1C

— Oleksii Reznikov (@oleksiireznikov) May 28, 2023

He also urged Australia to join the international tank coalition for Ukraine.

Last month, frontline Ukrainian soldiers told the ABC .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-13/bushmasters-changing-the-battlefield-in-ukraine/102471094 .. that Bushmasters had helped keep them alive during tense battles in Bakhmut. They asked Australia to send more of these type of vehicles to Eastern Ukraine.

[Insert: They Saw the Horrific Aftermath of a Mass Shooting. Should We?
[...] As have the countless other crime-scene investigators who must dwell in the aftermath following each mass shooting. Virginia Tech, Columbine, the Aurora movie theater, the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the El Paso Walmart shooting, Parkland, Las Vegas, Binghamton, San Bernardino, Sutherland Springs, Thousand Oaks, Virginia Beach, Monterey Park, Santa Fe, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Uvalde, the Covenant School in Nashville in March and Louisville in April. Each scene of unimaginable horror witnessed by an anonymous team we have chosen, without knowing it, to do the gruesome work of internalizing our national crisis for us.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=171739099]

But these appeals continue to fall on deaf ears. Australia has not made any further commitments to deliver armoured vehicles to Ukraine since October last year and has yet to make any contribution when it comes to tanks.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-11/australia-joins-the-climate-club-alliance-anthony-albanese/102585478

[fuagf]

Att: Zorax, in your mind was the Australian conservative Morrison administration's Robodebt AI? Or not AI. AI failure or just yet another colossal Australian conservative administration fuck-up? Your geeky-flavored (not meant derogatorily at all, just placing your expertise in the area in positive context vs mine) comment that much classed as AI shouldn't be. Is it more about definition than much else.

"Australian disgrace: ‘Crude and cruel’ scheme: robodebt royal commission report recommends civil and criminal prosecutions"

Robodebt was an AI ethics disaster

Automated systems need greater accountability.

By Casey Tonkin on Jun 29 2021 11:46 AM


The Robodebt debacle showed why we need AI ethics. Image: Shutterstock

The government’s automated welfare debt recovery process, commonly known as ‘Robodebt’, was an unmitigated failure that exemplifies the need to understand the ethics behind artificial intelligence decision making, says a new report.

In his forward to The Ethics and Risks of AI Decision-Making .. https://www.acs.org.au/insightsandpublications/reports-publications/the-ethics-and-risks-of-ai-decision-making.html .. report published by ACS, chair of the society’s AI Ethics Committee, Peter Leonard, said Robodebt offers a glimpse at what goes wrong when powerful institutions implement automated systems poorly.

“Robodebt illustrates how a calculation that is algorithmically correct when properly applied can be in error, unfair and illegal when applied more broadly, if it’s applied without due consideration of errors that can arise and without appropriate human intervention and consideration,” Leonard said.

“Robodebt is a very public example, but it’s just one of many automation-assisted decision-making processes that have blown up as illegal, unfair or biased, causing reputational damage to the organisations that deployed them.”

The system matched income data from the Australian Tax Office (ATO) with income data welfare recipients had reported to Centrelink.

It averaged the amounts and raised debts against people who had ‘discrepancies’ in the data.

Earlier this month the Federal Court slammed the Robodebt recovery scheme as “a massive failure .. https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2021/robodebt-a--massive-failure--of-government-automation.html .. of public administration” as it handed down a $1.8 billion settlement .. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-11/robodebt-condemned-by-federal-court-judge-as-shameful-chapter/100207674 .. against the government.

Fairness and accountability

Leonard said artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other automated systems like Robodebt need to be carefully designed to consider “fairness, accountability and transparency”.

“But many organisations fail to ensure that the automation component is appropriately deployed within a decision-making chain involving people, so that there is not excessive reliance on it or use it in inappropriate contexts.”

The Ethics and Risks of AI Decision-Making report notes that, as AI technologies continue to progress, there is a need to better articulate the importance of risk mitigation and appropriately accountable decision-making processes in order to help organisations understand the potential effects of automated systems.

It notes Australia does not yet have regulation to ensure AI is developed with the principles of ‘good AI’: fairness, equity, accountability, and transparency.

“Formal regulation may be a necessary and proportionate measure to assure good outcomes, at least in those contexts where the deployment of automation poses sufficiently high risk of exposure to harm, or where the level of uncertainty as to assessment and mitigation of risks or harms is unacceptably high,” the report said.

“Interim regulation may be appropriate for applications in particular industry sectors or particular use settings where the magnitude of risk of harm is such that a precautionary principle should be applied.”

Professional responsibility

The AI ethics report also recognises a need for the discussion around AI ethics to extend beyond the computational systems, into the organisations and management structures that put them in place.

“Many non-technical executives, including risk management specialists, are still developing the necessary skills and competencies to ensure that alignment,” it said.

“The data inputs, analytics capabilities and technologies driving automation applications are moving faster than the skills and competencies of many senior managers.”

Crucially, the report identifies data scientists and IT professionals as “straddling both sides of the divide” when it comes to designing, testing, and implementing automated systems.

Craig McDonald, an Emeritus Professor of Informatics at the University of Canberra, argued the ICT professionals involved in the Robodebt debacle ought to have taken more professional responsibility for the failed project, in a controversial article .. https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2020/it--professionals--are-to-blame-for-robodebt.html .. he wrote for Information Age last year.

The report said it is very important for IT professionals to have the “tools and methodologies” needed to navigate the move toward greater AI decision-making.

“As we develop more complex AI systems, it’s critical that the new generation of IT professionals understand their responsibilities in this regard, and are prepared and capable of guiding their organisations through the transition,” the report said.

The Ethics and Risks of AI Decision-Making .. https://www.acs.org.au/insightsandpublications/reports-publications/the-ethics-and-risks-of-ai-decision-making.html .. report is available now.

Casey Tonkin Twitter
A lifelong technophile and science fiction geek, Casey joined Information Age in 2019. With interests in AI, space
travel, and post-humanism, Casey is always on the hunt for the overlap of science-fact and science-fiction.

https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2021/robodebt-was-an-ai-ethics-disaster.html