Emily M. Bender & Alex Hanna, The AI Con

- Careful, I thought…is this going to be like those old anti-internet books of the 1990's? Thankfully, it's absolutely not! It calls out the bullshit that's everywhere in the AI universe. 

- Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington. She's an expert on how large language models work and why the illusion they produce is so compelling. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute and a former senior research scientist on Google's Ethical AI team. 

- Their basic premise is that 'synthetic text extruding machines can’t fill holes in the social fabric. We need people, political will, and resources...Artificial intelligence, if we're being frank, is a con: a bill of goods you're being sold to line someone else's pocket...it's 'mathy maths', a racist pile of linear algebra, or 'Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences (aka SALAMI)'.    

- '...for corporations and venture capitalists, the appeal of AI is not that it is sentient or technologically revolutionary, but that it promises to make the jobs of huge swaths of labor redundant and unnecessary.' 

- The chapter 'AI Hype in Art, Journalism, and Science' is excellent. 'Today's synthetic media extruding machines are all based on data theft and labor exploitation, and enable some of the worst, most perverse incentives of each of these attendant fields. The use of these systems does further damage socially: displacing working artists and journalists, warping the practice of science, and polluting the information ecosystem. And their existence undermines the position and value of craft across these endeavors'. 

- What we're seeing is the 'normalisation of data theft and exploitation...the derivative works from these models are largely copying their works and also significantly impinging on existing markets...In the case of the New York Times, users of ChatGPT and its different variants are able to produce, nearly verbatim, text from the newspaper, when they provide specific prompts....The argument that these tools are sufficiently "transformative" [permitted under the US Copyright Act] seems to ring hollow if they extrude words and images that are nearly identical to the data they are trained on, and do so on demand when prompted to produce something that matches the work of a specific artist or news outlet'. 

- 'For AI boosters, the threat of these lawsuits is existential. And frankly we welcome that. Venture capital firm Adreesssen Horowitz warned that all of their investments in AI would be worth a lot less if they had to abide by copyright law. "Imposing the cost of actual or potential copyright liability on the creators of AI models will either kill or significantly hamper their development". That is, if they actually had to pay artists illustrators, and writers what their content is worth, rather than simply stealing that content from the web, their business model would fall apart'.

- This well informed, clearly written book will bring you a whole new perspective on what's actually happening in the world of AI. Highly recommend.

Mark Brandi, Eden

 

- Well-known and highly regarded literary thriller author Mark Brandi has written a seemingly simple but deep and penetrating story about crimes, their origins, and their long term repercussions.

- The back cover blurb summarises the story well:

Cities are tough when you’ve grown up as a country kid. They’re even tougher after nine years inside. Tom Blackburn is fresh out of jail and not sure where his future lies. He knows what he wants but he’s pretty sure she doesn’t want him.

Tom‘s left his old life and his old name behind but his options aren’t great. He knows sleeping on the streets is the quickest way back to a cell. And then his luck turns around. A chance encounter leads to a job and somewhere to stay. A place in the dead centre of Melbourne. Eden, his new boss calls it.

Honest physical work. A bit of gardening, bit of gravedigging, bit of whatever he’s told to do. Fresh air, currawongs, a bed and some peace and quiet. It’s the perfect place to save some money and make some plans. A place to keep his head down and stay out of trouble.

But trouble finds him. Serious trouble. He’s missed the signs, again. Going back to jail might be the safest option. Unless he can figure some way out of the danger he’s in.

- We can't help but sympathise with Tom, and the work relationships he has to make in the cemetery in order to earn some money, get some accomodation, and move on with his life. But that proves to be very difficult. There are secrets there, and it's worth of lot of money to keep quiet about them. 

- A very satisfying read.

 

Linda Jaivin, Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China.

- Any book written by Linda Jaivin on China is essential reading. Her previous one, The Shortest History of China, 2021, which I reviewed here, was superb.

- Bombard the Headquarters is a smaller book (117 pages), and focuses solely on Mao Zedong and his ugly, abusive, murderous regime. But it is also essential reading. Mao was ruthless, and millions were murdered because he would not tolerate any compromise to his revolutionary communist agenda on any level whatsoever. 

- In the mid-1960's the Red Guards were formed and the Cultural Revolution got underway. 'Academics estimate that between 500,000 and 2 million excess deaths took place in the Chinese countryside over next four years'. It was a killing machine on every level. Over 10 million homes were ransacked as the red terrorists sought evidence of disloyalty to Mao. He was adored like a god. Some enthusiasts even sought to mandate that traffic lights be changed to allow the red light to mean 'go'. 

- After Mao's regime ended most Cultural Revolution radicals paid little or no price for their actions, despite the people generally not tolerating any return to radicalism. Mao had brought ‘domestic turmoil and catastrophe to the Party, the state and the whole people’. 'They struggled to deal with the loss of ten years of their lives to what now seemed a shameful, collective mania, as well as feelings of victimhood, betrayal and guilt...If one thing united many of these diverse thinkers, creators and activists in the immediate post-Mao era it was the spirit of humanism.' 

- The Cultural Revolution 'turned Chinese people against themselves, saw the army preside over mass murder, turned cities into battlefields and villages into killing grounds...After the decade-long upheaval, at least 4.2 million people were detained and investigated and 1.7 million were killed, according to official statistics released in 1984.' 

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Graeme Turner, Broken: Universities, Politics and the Public Good

- Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland Graeme Turner's last book was The Shrinking Nation which I enthused over in this review:

- This just published short book written for In the National Interest series, published by Monash University Publishing, is another powerful condemnation of Australia's public sphere. His focus in on the deplorable state of our university system. He doesn't hold back. It's persuasive, comprehensive, credible, insightful and detailed, and Turner is very angry indeed. 

- On every level he damns Australian governments of both major parties over the last fifty years for the destruction they're wrought on our higher education system. Their neoliberal, pro-market, privatisation reforms have been utterly disastrous.  

-  ‘…students are dropping out, academics are burning out, and governments have been tuning out for decades’. It's a tragic story in so many ways. The shameless behaviour of governments, both Labor and the Coalition, have demonstrated their profound ignorance of what a university really should be. 

- The sector's federal government funding has gone from 80% in the 1980's to 40% now. The 'creeping cancer of excessive casualisation' has meant that 'more than 50% of the teaching in our universities is now delivered by casual staff on short-term contracts', and it's close to 75% in some institutions.

- 'longstanding collegial systems of governance were gradually replaced by management practices drawn from the corporate world that increased the role of the central executive'. In the desperate search for adequate funding, universities aggressively entered the market for international students. Earnings from these students accounted for 50% of Sydney University's total income in 2024.

- Governments have pressed universities 'to think of themselves as businesses rather than as publicly funded institutions....The consequences for the academic culture of the university community, however, have been corrosive'. 'The demands of the vocations or professions have become decisive drivers'. The broader fields of knowledge are deemed unimportant. ‘The myth of the useless arts degree turns up all over the place’. 

- 'Battered, broken and distorted by years of poor policy, disinvestment and piecemeal strategic initiatives, this is a system that requires a major renovation...There is an urgent need for an independent coordinating body to manage how our university system serves our national interests in both teaching and research.' 

- When I was a student at Sydney University in the early 70's, things were wonderful. I would hate going there today. 

Fiona McFarlane, Highway 13

 

(The backpacker murders were a spate of serial killings that took place in New South Wales, Australia, between 1989 and 1993, committed by Ivan Milat. The bodies of seven missing young people aged 19 to 22 were discovered partially buried in the Belanglo State Forest, 15 kilometres south-west of the New South Wales town of Berrima. Five of the victims were foreign backpackers (three German, two British) and two were Australians from Melbourne. Milat, then 51 years old, was convicted of the murders on 27 July 1996 and was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences, as well as 18 years without parole. He died in prison on 27 October 2019, having never confessed to the murders for which he was convicted). Wikipedia

- Fiona McFarlane's new novel, Highway 13, is really twelve different short stories of around 25 or so pages each, five of them having been previously published. Each of them are set in a different year or time frame, from 1950 to 2028. It's a novel only because they are all connected by a fictionalised version of the backpacker murders described above. The killer is named Paul Biga. 

- The stories are long enough for McFarlane to dig deep into her characters. They are all victims of the murders, or family or friends of the victims. As readers we meet them up close and are drawn to them. What struck me about their stories though was the fragility of their circumstances generally. Their lives are fragile and flimsy, as are their relationships. Most couples end up getting separated or divorced, and brothers and sisters emotionally isolated. McFarlane seems to be reminding us that we humans are always loosely connected to each other in so many ways. Tragedy can happen, but it's hardly surprising. 

- McFarlane's prose is clear and uncomplicated and she has the gift of penetrating deeply into personalities and emotions, focusing on quirks, strengths and  vulnerabilities. It's a real joy to read. 

- The novel is shortlisted for the 2025 Miles Franklin Award, and might well win. It's superb on so many levels. 

Siang Lu, Ghost Cities

 

- Sian Lu's Ghost Cities has been shortlisted for the 2025 Miles Franklin Award, which is why I read it. I doubt it will win but nevertheless on many levels it's a highly enjoyable read. 

- Basically it's a satire of China, combining outrageous portraits of both ancient and modern Chinese society. Lu has fun with Chinese authoritarianism and pretence.  Unfortunately however he doesn't imbue his portrait with much depth. The focus is on the madness of both eras, the abject cruelty of the ancient, and the sham and glitz of the modern. I guess it could be read as a blistering condemnation of Chinese society, but it's laced with such humour and fantasy that it can't be taken too seriously as a critique. 

- The books and paintings of both eras are central too, immersing us in the long tradition of Chinese and Western thought and art. 

- The basic story features four main characters: The ancient Chinese Emperor, the modern Chinese film producer/director Baby Bao, Lu Xiang the Australian translator who can't actually speak Chinese, and Yuan, his girlfriend and also a translator. 

- Also central is the vacant city of Port Man Tou. Baby Bao builds an immense studio encompassing the entire city and offers Xiang Lu a job. It’s a created zone. As a city it's not actually real - nothing is. Bao attracts millions of peasants and serfs to take actor-worker jobs. There are cameras everywhere, outnumbering citizens ten to one. After a while he toxifies the city to make it more real. The air is thick and heavy. The extras no longer live gratis in comfortable apartments in the city. They have been moved to the fringes where the rent is cheaper and the rooms smaller. And they work on farms and in factories. Constantly filmed of course. 

- The ‘Department of Verisimilitude’ is one of the city's governing ministries. Official decrees by the many government departments are authoritarian and dictatorial. Like in the ancient Emperor days. All clocks, watches, and phones showing the time, for example, are outlawed. Only Standard Time showing on a huge clock on a government building is allowed in Port Man Tou. 

- Xiang and Yuan talk while they walk the city. Their conversation is delightful. They are a liberating reality. They were brought up in Australia, and imbue the book with joy and soul. At one point they discuss Chinese art, and Western art like Jackson Pollock’s. Yuan doesn’t like Pollock’s art. ‘It is very like you…to search for patterns in the paint…you construct theories about things, the world, and latch tightly on to examples that will prove your theories beyond doubt’. 

- The Emperor on the other hand throws countless aristocrats, scholars, consorts, chefs and others who offend him into the prison of the Six Levels of Hell. He also burns every book in the Imperial Library. He alone needs to dominate. Authoritarianism is his style. Torture, murder and abuse his tools.

- At one point I wondered whether the director Baby Bao was a skewering of current Chinese President Xi Jinping, a total authoritarian and faux Emperor. If not, at least the novel, despite its comic tone, tells a horrific story of authoritarian abuse.  

Sinead Stubbins, Stinkbug

 

- This new novel by Australian author Sinead Stubbins is a delightfully comic immersion in a toxic work environment. Suffering and surviving incompetent management, poor HR policies, jealous and unfriendly work colleagues, sexist male behaviour and seriously immature corporate expectations all round - all this defines the experience of working at an advertising agency called Winked.  

- Edith is the main character. Her ex-boyfriend Pete has just been sacked. As the novel progresses we learn a lot more about their relationship, and it's not good. Her boss Danny, who thinks very highly of himself (‘If I say something’s alright, it’s alright’) also features. Her colleague and best work friend is Mo who is ‘extremely talented and extremely terrifying’. Other characters feature in the novel, some good, some bad. We get to know them well, and generally speaking, we get to unlike them quite a lot. 

- Edith had a heart that was eager to please and a face that seemed to say “I think you’re a fucking moron”, which, according to Mo, was the best thing about her. She also shaves her head, which annoys everyone. But it's a statement. Mo thinks ‘everyone is a cliche…no one is original, everything is boring.’ 

- Winked has 300 or so staff and has been bought by a Swedish company. Everyone expects a major restructure and lots of redundancies. The company sends them all on a weekend retreat to undergo 'mind-training' at a camp outside Sydney called Consequi. It's ‘a rehab for workplaces’. A slight spoiler here - it's just awful!

- They're subjected to a range of exercises and highly personal questions that are meant to sort out the best and most productive employees. What's revealed is a highly toxic work environment, and one decidedly in favour of men. Edith is very unliked. Danny lists all her lies and misdemeanours. Una calls her a liar and a ‘stinkbug…your stench will get all over them..’ Thomas says ‘she’s a dobber’. Bruno says ‘she’s a fake’. It’s like a religious exorcism. They all get around in a circle and abuse and slap another person. They cut each other superficially with a dagger to prove they ‘belonged’. 

- There is high drama, which thankfully is very satisfactorily resolved. 

- I absolutely loved this novel. Stubbins is such a talented writer. She is able to address significant work and life issues with wit and vitality, making for a thoroughly engaging read.