When we think of statistics, it has a nasty tendency to stir up school based maths trauma, which can make us feel dumb and slow. It conjures the spectre of monstrously complicated equations, low marks on maths tests, and ideas we can't even imagine being able to understand.
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There is no existential threat, ChatGPT is an evolutionary dead end
I think this is the real danger of AI - that we want to believe. Chatbots are so plausible they draw us in, even when we should know better. They give confident, and completely wrong answers, in a way that we are all too happy to accept. They seem to have generated a veneer of respectability and credibility which is wholly unearned.
The Devil is in the Definitions
In the aftermath of the media frenzy around Australia's most successful soccer team, The Matildas, making it to the finals of the World Cup, the Australian Football League made a grab for the headlines with the exciting announcement that women's football would finally get the same prize money as the men. It must be true.… Continue reading The Devil is in the Definitions
One year and 21 fascinating data conversations
21 guests and one year later, Make Me Data Literate is breaking new ground. Don't be afraid of data. It can be an extraordinarily powerful tool in any field, and you don't need wildly technical skills in order to make sense of a spreadsheet. Imagine if we all had the power to ask for evidence, and to critically interrogate that evidence. That's the world I'm working towards, and I'm so grateful to all of my Make Me Data Literate guests who are helping me along the way!
We need to demand better from tech
We suffer from a combination of shiny toy fever and an entirely hallucinatory dream that the tech industry is operating for our benefit, rather than to extract ever increasing rivers of money (and power) from us regardless of ethics, environment, or compassion. In the face of countless examples of sociopathic behaviour, our attitude towards tech remains bizarrely positive.