Have you heard? Artificial intelligence is a thing! Maybe it’s even out of control? For that and various other reasons, my special guest for the final summer series episode is Professor Johanna Weaver, former cyber diplomat, and director of the Tech Policy Design Centre at ANU.
We talk about making the internet more resilient, diplomacy during the covid times, and Australia’s relatively competent approach to regulating artificial intelligence. I even reveal my true age.
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Professor Johanna Weaver is the founding Director of the Tech Policy Design Centre (TPDC) at the Australian National University.
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The Tech Policy Design Centre (TPDC) is a nonpartisan, independent research organisation at the Australian National University. Our mission is to develop fit-for-purpose tech policy frameworks to shape technology for the long-term benefit of humanity. We work to mature the tech-governance ecosystem in collaboration with industry, government, civil society, and academia.
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[7 February 2024] To mark its transition from a pilot to a permanent centre, TPDC today announces the development of Australia’s first dedicated tech policy curriculum and an expanded research agenda, supported by a new Independent Advisory Board, which meets today for the first time.
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[1 June 2023] Artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT, has gained a lot of attention in the last six months. However, as it becomes more advanced, the Australian Government is already working on how it can limit its usage.
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Tech Mirror: Reflecting on technology and society with Johanna Weaver explores how technology impacts our lives: the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. Technology is made by humans. When we refocus on this foundational truth, it opens the possibility that technology can be made differently.
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The Global Tech Policy Atlas is a public repository of national tech policy, strategy, legislation and regulation. Its purpose is to assist policymakers and researchers conduct evidence-based independent research. We rely on contributions from users to expand and update the dataset.
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[1 February 2023] What will it look like if Australia gets tech regulation right? This research recommends a best practice model for tech policy coordination in Australia. The model draws on international best practices, and extensive consultation with stakeholders in Government, Industry, and Civil Society. The model is ready for immediate implementation and is largely cost-neutral.
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[31 January 2024] As the interim report noted, “businesses and individuals who develop and use AI are already subject to various Australian laws. These include laws such as those relating to privacy, online safety, corporations, intellectual property and anti-discrimination, which apply to all sectors of the economy.
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[14 February 2024] The temporary group is part of the Australian Government’s interim response to the safe and responsible AI consultation.
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[17 January 2024] The interim response outlines what the Australian public, academia and businesses told us about safe and responsible AI. It also details how the government is and will take action now and in the longer term.
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The Australian Government published its interim response to this consultation on 17 January 2024. The interim response covers: what we heard from stakeholders; [and] how the government will ensure AI is designed, developed and deployed safely and responsibly.
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[17 January 2024] New report reveals low public trust of growing technology as government pledges stricter regulation for ‘high risk’ products.
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The ANU Tech Policy Design Centre, in partnership with the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, is undertaking a first-of-its kind project to holistically map the resilience of Australia’s telecommunications sector.
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[2 March 2022] In what one expert described as an "unfortunate confluence of events," two fibre-optic cables connecting the state to mainland Australia were cut within the space of two hours on Tuesday, resulting in an outage which lasted over five hours.
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[7 April 2011] Entire country loses internet for five hours after woman, 75, slices through cable while scavenging for copper.
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[23 February 2022] Massive eruption and tsunami ruptured undersea cable leaving residents with only makeshift satellite connections.
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The Submarine Cable Map is a free and regularly updated resource from TeleGeography.
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[6 March 2024] In May 2023, the Chinese government started talks with 10 nations in the South Pacific, offering loans to help build and expand their communications networks. The provider would be the Chinese technology giant, Huawei.
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[13 June 2018] Turnbull announces joint project amid concerns about Beijing’s ‘soft diplomacy’.
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[26 October 2023] ‘South Pacific Connect’ project launches. Google is set to deploy two new trans-Pacific subsea cables between the United States and Australia, via Fiji and French Polynesia, with Vocus to help deliver the project.
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In February 2022, two days after Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine requested American aerospace company SpaceX to activate their Starlink satellite internet service in the country to replace internet and communication networks degraded or destroyed during the war. Starlink has since been used by Ukrainian civilians, government and military. The satellite service has served for humanitarian purposes, as well as defense and attacks on Russian positions.
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[30 January 2024] In this edition of Between Two Nerds Tom Uren and The Grugq talk about how the war in Ukraine is showing how useful mobile devices are in war. Using them is risky, but those risks need to be managed.
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Silverview is a novel by British writer John le Carré, published posthumously on 12 October 2021. The book was completed for publication by his son Nick Cornwell... Silverview centres on a young bookseller, an enigmatic Polish immigrant, and a British agent hunting down a leak... Julian Lawndsley has left a career in the financial sector in London to open a bookstore in a small seaside town in East Anglia. Soon after opening the shop, a Polish immigrant named Edward Avon comes in, not to buy books but to chat. He urges Lawndsley to open a section of the store in the basement called the Republic of Literature, which would offer only the classics. Edward Avon is later revealed to be a retired agent for MI6 and a former communist.
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[20 February 2024] Many voters are unhappy with the choice. An ABC News/Ipsos poll earlier this month found 59% of Americans think both presumptive nominees are too old to serve another term.
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[16 April 2019] The United Nations now has not one but two separate forums for discussing international rules of behaviour in the cyber realm, and Australia will be supporting them both.
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Beginning in 2004, six Groups of Governmental Experts (GGE) have studied the threats posed by the use of ICTs in the context of international security and how these threats should be addressed.
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[10 April 2018] In April 2016, Prime Minister Turnbull confirmed that Australia has an offensive cyber capability. A series of official disclosures have provided further detail, including that Australia will use this capability against offshore cybercriminals. This was the first time any state has announced such a policy.
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[20 April 2016] The PM released Australia's Cyber Security Strategy on Thursday morning. Media reports focused on the 'revelation' of our cyber attack capabilities, but that's just a well-crafted political distraction.
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The 2021 International Cyber and Critical Technology Engagement Strategy sets out Australia’s vision for a safe, secure and prosperous Australia, Indo-Pacific region and world enabled by cyberspace and critical technology. It provides a framework to guide Australia’s international engagement across the spectrum of cyber and critical technology issues in support of this vision, and the practical actions Australia will take to advance our objectives.
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[26 October 2023] There is a persistent myth that cyberspace is a lawless wild west. This could not be further from the truth. There is a clear international consensus that existing laws of war apply online.
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[14 June 2021] As states give increased attention to the governance of cyberspace (the technical architecture that allows the global internet to function) and governance in cyberspace (how states, industry, and users may use this technology), the role of international law in the cyber context has gained increasing prominence.
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Academi, formerly known as Blackwater, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1996, by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acquired by a group of private investors In 2014, Academi merged with Triple Canopy to form Constellis Holdings. Constellis and its predecessors provide contract security services to the United States federal government. Since 2003, it has provided services to the Central Intelligence Agency. In 2013, its subsidiary, International Development Solutions, received an approximately $92 million contract for U.S. State Department security guards. In 2007, Constellis (then Blackwater) received widespread notoriety for the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, when a group of its employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20. Four employees were convicted in the United States and later pardoned on December 22, 2020, by President Donald Trump.
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International humanitarian law is a set of rules that seek to limit the effects of armed conflict. It protects people who are not or are no longer participating in hostilities and restricts the means and methods of warfare.
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