Humanity is not a monoculture, and nor is Australia

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Humanity is not a monoculture, and nor is Australia

14 August 2026

I’m still reading through Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recently published vision of an AI future, but this paragraph jumped out at me:

Humanity is not a monoculture. People’s diverse values represent different tradeoffs they would make on important issues. There is no technological solution that can align with everyone’s opposing interests and values at once. Any singular superintelligence would have to prioritize some values over others and in the process would be incapable of being benevolent to everyone.

In this context, I think Zuckerberg is discussing the challenges of developing a so-called superintelligence that could comprehend the values of the world’s many varied, disparate, cultures.

Superintelligence, sometimes referred to as Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), sits above Artificial Geneal Intelligence (AGI), which in turn sits above AI. A go to example (for me) of AGI is the HAL 9000 computer, AKA Hal, from Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Hal appears to be conscious, and is capable of thinking and reasoning as a human would.

It seems to me ASI, which is (theoretically) vastly superior to AGI, should be able to extend its “benevolence” to all the people of the Earth, because understanding each of their cultures would surely be something that level of technology is easily capable of. Meta however is developing what they describe as superintelligence, which may vary from ASI.

But I digress.

I doubt Australian politician, and leader of a far-right party called One Nation, Pauline Hanson, would agree with Zuckerberg’s view that humanity is not a monoculture. Because during her recent appearance at the National Press Club, she declared Australia must exist as a “monocultural society”.

Yes, Australia, the place where people from just about every culture in the world, reside.

Surprisingly, Hanson views AI favourably, although she did call for stronger government regulation of the technologies. But technologies that may recognise humanity, and by extension, the people of Australia, are not monocultural? Can that be tolerated?

No doubt Hanson will be calling for the very strict regulation of that sort of technology.

Sydney municipal council wants shop signs to be in English

13 August 2026

Strathfield is a suburb located in the west of Sydney, Australia. I don’t know many people living in the area, so I’m not there often, but have occasionally wandered the streets near the railway station. About a third of residents were born in Australia, while a reasonable number of people hail from Nepal, China, India, South Korea, and Vietnam.

This diversity is reflected in the restaurants, supermarkets, and other shops, located near the train station, where the shop signage of many of these businesses are usually composed in the first language of their respective owners. Something, of course, seen elsewhere in Sydney, and in other English speaking countries across the world.

I can only comprehend some of these shop signs, but the nature of the business is usually quite apparent. The local municipal council, Strathfield City Council, however, does not think this is sufficient, and wants all shop signage to appear in English. I can’t see how this will improve anything, nor do I see a problem with the status quo.

The proposal does not entirely come out of the blue though. In 2018, the council tried doing the same thing, apparently without success. But eight years later the idea has surfaced again. Someone there seems determined to make this happen.

A Future on Stage, adapting Back to the Future to the stage

7 August 2026

We missed the sadly short-lived stage adaptation of the 1985 time-travel escapade movie Back to the Future (BTTF), during its brief Australian run, in late 2025. I did however catch A Future on Stage, trailer, a documentary about bringing the original film to the stage as a musical.

The words “we didn’t think we could do this”, and “we had no idea what we were doing”, and similar such, may have been uttered a few times too many throughout — since we know the show eventually succeeded — but otherwise the feature was fun to watch.

Producing films and stage shows are probably equally difficult in their own ways.

It was reassuring to hear Bob Gale, co-creator of the BTTF film trilogy categorically rule out prequels, sequels, and spinoffs, at least so long as he and Robert Zemeckis retain control the story rights.

Despite relatively long runs in the United Kingdom and United States, Back to the Future The Musical didn’t fly in Australia, and played for just four months in Sydney. The disappointing run was attributed to cost-of-living pressures, and the high cost of staging the show locally.

Edition four-hundred of Dense Discovery published this week

7 August 2026

The popular weekly email newsletter, written by Melbourne based Australia curator and publisher Kai Brach, has actually been published five-hundred-and-seventy-nine times, but earlier editions were written under another title. But who’s counting?

True to its tagline, “one email worth opening, every week”, Dense Discovery (DD) is something I’ve been reading for years. Er, this is via the web rather than email, but DD is certainly one website worth reading every week, for all things art, design, technology, and culture.

Here’s to the next four-hundred — or should that be five-hundred-and-seventy-nine? — editions.

Fierceland, by Omar Musa, wins 2026 Miles Franklin Award

7 August 2026

Queanbeyan, NSW, based author and visual artist Omar Musa, has been named winner of the 2026 Miles Franklin Literary Award, for his 2025 novel Fierceland.

Fierceland is Musa’s second novel, and tells the story of two siblings returning to their home in Malaysian Borneo, for their father’s funeral, having lived overseas for years:

After many years abroad, Roz and Harun return to Malaysian Borneo for the funeral of their father Yusuf — and to reckon with their inheritance. A renowned palm-oil baron during Malaysia’s economic rise, Yusuf built the family’s immense wealth by destroying huge tracts of rainforest. What his children know is that he was also responsible for the violent disappearance of a man who stood in his way.

Harun has become a successful tech entrepreneur in Los Angeles, Roz is an artist struggling to stay afloat in Sydney. Now they want to return something their father stole from the forests of their homeland. In their quest for redemption they grapple with the legacy of power and corruption, dreamers and exiles, thugs and zealots. Most dangerous of all, they are haunted — by the ghosts of colonialism, the ghosts of family, the ghosts of language, and the ghosts of the forest itself.

The Miles Franklin is awarded annually to Australian novels of the highest literary merit.

Record El Nino event might bring drought, heatwaves, to Australia in spring

1 August 2026

A “record” El Niño event, presently wreaking havoc in the northern hemisphere, is expected to lead to an excessively warm and dry spring in Australia, and, no doubt, other regions south of the equator.

We’ve barely had a winter in my part of the world this year. To be sure, there’s been one or two cooler days, and evenings can get chilly, but the winter woollens have seen little use thus far.

I’ve been dreading the upcoming summer, but by the sounds of it, spring is going to be worse.

But it’s important to remember that El Niño events are but one of several environmental phenomena that play a part in influencing the weather hereabouts.

David vs Goliath Australian film classic The Castle being adapted for stage

30 July 2026

Feel good Australian comedy classic movie, The Castle, made in 1997, is set the join the likes of Back to the Future, The Color Purple, and Titanic, in being adapted for the stage. The story follows a working class family trying to stop cashed-up property developers seizing their home.

The producers of the film, including Tom Gleisner, Santo Cilauro, Jane Kennedy, and Rob Sitch, will be involved in the writing and production of the stage show. Fingers crossed then the adaptation will retain the quirkiness and candour of the original film.

Talking of Kennedy and Sitch, I stumbled upon a satirical show they starred in about thirty years ago, Frontline, a send-up of Australian current affairs shows, in the iView archives. It’s a great show, but a lot has changed since the mid 1990’s. I’m not sure something like that could be made today.

My old red iPhone SE 2, no AusAlert alert, much embarrassment

28 July 2026

AusAlert is a new, nation wide, emergency warning system being rolled out by the Australian government. Should there be a crisis or disaster of some sort, authorities will be able to send warnings to mobile phones in the vicinity.

The alerts, which will be heralded by a short, but loud siren sound, are designed to override both silent, and do not disturb (DND) modes. That’s a good thing, as I avail myself of both constantly.

To test the system, an AusAlert message was to be sent to every mobile device in Australia, yesterday afternoon. It is unlikely nationwide broadcasts will occur regularly, if at all, as alerts are only intended to go only to phones in a specific region, if something is wrong. But saying every mobile device in Australia would receive the test warning was something of an exaggeration.

At 2PM AEST yesterday, my phone sat silent, even though phones all around me wailed for about ten seconds. As it happens though, AusAlerts cannot reach every phone, or mobile device, after all. For one, devices switched off, or in aeroplane mode, would not have received the test warning.

The same goes for older devices, of which mine, an iPhone SE 2, must be considered as far as AusAlert goes. I had heard “older” phones would instead receive a backup “presidential alert”, but I saw nothing. Landlines are likewise incapable of receiving the warnings, though I believe plans are in the works to include them eventually.

Later yesterday afternoon, Kristy McBain, the Australian Emergency Management Minister, said ninety-four percent of phone towers sent the alert.

That sounds a little low for what is meant to be national warning framework. It seems to me a lot of people could miss out in the event of a crisis. Still, the system is a work-in-progress, and doubtless coverage will move closer to one-hundred percent of towers.

I (still) have an iPhone SE 2, which I am reluctant to part with. It’s one of the (RED) red ones, which I had struggled to obtain. So I’m still using it. This is disassociated not Daring Fireball.

But I felt slightly embarrassed my phone didn’t join in the test. Most people knew what was happening, but some — despite pre-test publicity — seemed confused. I needn’t have fretted about my old red phone though, I doubt anyone had the slightest idea it remained mute during the drill.

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Are bloggers the same as writers, journalists, under the Australian AI framework?

21 July 2026

Last week the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled his government’s AI strategy. Part of the proposed framework includes a provision to ensure Australian writers, musicians, artists, and journalists, are paid in the event their work is used in the development of AI agents.

This is as it should be. Anyone else who wants to access copyrighted material needs to pay. It should be no different for the big tech, and AI, companies.

As someone who writes predominately online, a blogger, I see myself as either a writer and/or a journalist, in terms of this framework. I know it sound like I’m being pedantic, and surely most people would assume a blogger is regarded as a writer or a journalist.

But is that the way I would actually be viewed under the proposed AI framework? Albanese, after all, made no mention of bloggers, or other online content creators.

Of course, the Prime Minister’s speech was a statement of policy intention, and the finer details, will, I assume, come later as the AI strategy is devised.

The matter is of interest though, as I’m one of who-knows-how-many Australian bloggers whose writings have been harvested in recent years, most likely by AI companies. Would bloggers also be subject to the provisions being proposed for writers, musicians, artists, and journalists?

Or does the exclusively digital nature of a blogger’s work somehow diminish its stature? Will any sort of payment for work copied or used by AI companies only apply to mediums that exist firstly in a physical form, such as books or paintings?

These are mediums that can be digitised (somehow), making them attractive fodder for knowledge hungry AI agents, but does their physical form still give them precedence?

To be clear, I’m not talking about copyright. Any work created in Australia is protected by copyright laws, including that of bloggers. Generally for copyright to apply, a work must be created by a person, be original, and be “fixed”, that is, the work must exist in a tangible form.

This includes content on a web page. Australian bloggers are covered then by copyright. Regardless of whether anyone actually takes notice.

But while Australian copyright laws apply to “people who express original ideas and information in certain forms“, the proposed AI strategy, based on what we know at present, seems far more specific. Writers, musicians, artists, and journalists. Not bloggers, or other content creators working online.

Time will tell though whether Albanese was being specific or not.

As I wrote last week, given the amount of scraping and copying that has already occurred, a large number of Australian creatives will have already lost out, in terms of compensation.

It’s my feeling then any payments that AI companies may be required to make, will only apply to works created after any legislation is enacted. Anything else could be complicated to say the least.

Again though, time will tell.

AI here to stay, accept it, says Australian government, vows artist copyright protection

17 July 2026

Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, says he wants to make Australia an “attractive destination” for investment in AI development, during a speech delivered on Wednesday.

Albanese also wants to balance the opportunities and risks presented by the technologies, particularly concerns that AI uptake will result in widespread job losses.

AI will take away jobs, he said, but will also create new and different lines of work.

Among proposals is a coordinated national framework, rather than a state-by-state approach, that will oversee matters including the construction of AI data centres.

In short, data centres will be required to generate their own power, by way of renewable energy sources, and minimise water consumption.

During his speech, Albanese also gave an undertaking to protect the intellectual property of Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists:

An artist’s creative endeavour is their work and their property. No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control. That includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work. Anything less, is theft.

These are words Australian artists and creatives wanted to hear.

Protections will doubtless be included in upcoming legislation, but after rampant marauding of creative material by AI scraper bots in recent years, the move might come too late.

The proposed laws might protect work created in the future, but what of copyrighted content that has already been copied, and digested, by AI agents?

Will AI companies who used creative work in the past be required to offer retrospective remuneration? Will these entities, many of whom are based outside Australia, be the slightest bit concerned by these proposals?

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