Think: Digital Futures

Can a printer save a life?

Featured:

Produced and Presented by: Andrew Herlinger

Music by Trev Lewis from Hagfilms, Drakensson, and TheoTer. Sourced from Freesound.org

Stem cell research offers great promise in the treatment of Australians living with diseases, cancers or a physical disfigurement.

But with that potential comes concerns over its tendency to being labour intensive, time consuming and expensive.

As such, there is plenty of research being conducted that is looking to reduce its costs and time in a way that is both ethical and profitable for those that are investing money into this area.

Think Digital Futures' Andrew Herlinger investigates.

Does your robot trust you?

As research hastens to making Brain-Computer Interfaces between robots and human a reality, we ought to examine the cultural significance behind it. We must consider the definition of “trust” and how it can be applied to an interface between a robot and a human. We can easily understand how much a human trusts a robot, but have you ever considered if a robot can trust a human? Can we even consider it at all? Cameron M. Furlong investigates.

Features:

Produced and Presented by: Cameron M. Furlong

Music by Trev Lewis from Hagfilms, Drakensson, and TheoTer. Sourced from Freesound.org

What happens when you ask Google to tell you the truth?

Featured:

Associate Professor Heather Ford: Head Of Discipline Digital and Social Media, UTS

Produced and Presented by: Lawrence Bull

Music: Theme for Empty Stage by Luella Gren

It’s never been so easy to access quick information – a third of Australian adults use virtual assistants. But are we getting the facts?

Just how representative is the world’s largest encyclopedia?

Featured:

Associate Professor Heather Ford: Head Of Discipline Digital and Social Media, UTS

Produced and Presented by: Lawrence Bull

Music: Ha-He by Just a Band

The world’s biggest encyclopedia has a big problem. Female editors at Wikipedia are outnumbered by a factor of eight. Africans are underrepresented by a factor of 17. 

The bias is built into the code, and that code is programming our future. If Wikipedia – one of the largest databases of information on the internet and now used to train neutral networks – is biased, then how can we rely on it be a source of balanced information? Think: Digital Futures’ producer Lawrence Bull investigates.

Are the decisions made by AI really as unbiased as we think they are?

Featured:

Distinguished Professor Fang Chen: Executive Director of The Data Science Institute, UTS

Doctor Ben Swift: Senior Lecturer, School of Computing, ANU

Produced and Presented by: Andrew Herlinger

Music by Trev Lewis from Hagfilms, Drakensson, and TheoTer. Sourced from Freesound.org

As AI and machine learning systems become more advanced, the more we see them enter into different aspects of our day to day lives. We may think that the mathematical functions the machine learning algorithms are trained on are free from the mortal flaw of bias human decisions are cursed by – but the unfortunate reality is that they may not be as unbiased as we want them to be. How do we ensure these digital decision makers are operating fairly? This quandary is quickly becoming a significant concern as AI driven processes become involved in choices that have far-reaching impacts on our daily lives. Think: Digital Futures’ producer Andrew Herlinger investigates.

For the last 5 years, Dr. Su and his team have been developing an electronic nose that can sense gas compound patterns in the air. The E-nose that they have developed has the capability to distinguish between different brands of whiskey, including smelling out counterfeits. However, the dream does not end there for Dr. Su. He sees potential uses for this e-nose as far as drug detection and food safety, and even as a part of a robot with the full suite of human sensors. But how does an e-nose work; how similar is it to a human nose; and can it beat out an eager set of human nostrils in a whiskey sniff test? Dr. Su has your answers.

How can AI help in ensuring gender equality in legislation?

Featured:

Dr. Ramona Vijeyarasa: Senior Lecturer Faculty of Law, UTS; Architect of the Gender Legislative Index

The Hon. Ruth Forrest: Member of the Legislative Council of Tasmania; Independent member for Murchison

Produced and Presented by: Cameron M. Furlong

Music by Trev Lewis from Hagfilms, Drakensson, and TheoTer. Sourced from Freesound.org

As more scrutiny is put on the type of exclusionary and gender-biased language used in legislation, law makers should be looking for ways to improve the process of creating laws. How can we know which laws need changing, and to what degree? Such a question cannot be answered by a human-powered review into every single law in existence - there is just too much to go through, and humans are inherently biased no matter how neutral they claim to be. The challenge has been set, and Dr Ramona Vijeyarasa has a solution - the Gender Legislative Index. The GLI compares legislation to global standards and gives a rating as to how biased or unbiased the law is. The GLI currently being used in 4 countries; Australia, Indonesia, The Philippines, and Sri Lanka to assess laws currently in effect. But what about future laws? Well, thanks to Ruth Forrest, the GLI may start to be directly involved in legislation passed in the Tasmanian Parliament. Hopefully, the value of the GLI is seen and its services are implemented at a Federal Level.

Most of our search for love and sex has been uploaded onto apps - for better or worse. What effect is this having on queer communities, and what are the experiences of queer people using these apps?

Language warning

Featuring:

Paul Byron, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Communication, UTS

Eric, Former dating app user

Damien, Current dating app user

Producer/presenter: Josh Green

Music: Epidemic sound

As technology and social media algorithms evolve faster than we can monitor them, how has our ability to empathise with others been affected?

Featuring:

Joshua Krook, PhD candidate, University of Adelaide.

Dr Heather Ford, Head of Digital and Social Media, UTS.

Brennan Hatton, CTO and co-founder of Equal Reality.

Producer/presenter: Bageshri Savyasachi

Music: Epidemic sound

What are the experiences of women using technology to make a baby? And how are they navigating the fertility industry online?

Featuring:

Natalie Hart, donor egg recipient

Professor Anita Stuhmcke, faculty of law, UTS

Dr Lizle Oosthuizen, reproduction medicine specialist, Cape Fertility

Producer/presenter: Julia Carr-Catzel

Music: Epidemic sound