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Author's note
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Artificial intelligence, or AI, is everywhere – it’s helping cars navigate roads, robots sort parcels and internet users buy more products. But what happens when AI tries to help us interpret what we see in nature?
Each year mobile phone users are adding tens of millions of photos of plants and animals onto the internet. This remarkable trove of data is helping researchers map biodiversity and see the world in exciting new ways. But the data is also being used – often without the users’ knowledge – to train computer vision technology through machine learning.
For me, this raises some interesting questions. What happens when we turn to a centralised AI, rather than to other people, to help us interpret the flora and fauna around us? What level of transparency and control should we have when it comes to sharing our encounters with nature? And ultimately, if this technology is inevitable, are we programming AI, or is AI programming us?
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Andrew Robinson
Communications Scientist and Scholar
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Top story
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In the Global Biodiversity Information Facility there are 682,447 records of human encounters with dandelions.
from www.shutterstock.com
Andrew Robinson, Australian National University
Does big data threaten how humans explore the natural world? We need to protect our impulses to observe, compare, play, discover and love, no matter what technological capabilities are available.
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Environment + Energy
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Andrew King, University of Melbourne
2017 brought wild, wacky and even deadly weather. Australia was hit by heatwaves and torrential rains, plus some surprisingly cool spells. Hurricanes hit America, and a killer monsoon lashed Asia.
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Education
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Sophie Heizer, The Conversation
The year 2017 is finally coming to an end, so here's a wrap of our coverage for the year, with bonus quiz!
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Arts + Culture
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Troy Whitford, Charles Sturt University
Stan's remake of the 1992 film Romper Stomper swaps skinhead culture for the complexities of contemporary Australian extremist politics. In doing so, it highlights disillusion with mainstream politicians and media.
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Politics + Society
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Peter Robertson, University of Western Australia
As Australia increasingly looks to Beijing for economic opportunities, questions must be asked about the true extent of China's economic strength
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Antonia Canosa, Southern Cross University
So-called 'party' towns like Byron Bay attract huge numbers of visitors for schoolies weeks and New Year's Eve – but sometimes at high cost to the young people who live there.
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Health + Medicine
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Stephen Bright, Edith Cowan University
There are sayings like "beer before liquor, never been sicker. Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear” - here we look at the evidence behind them.
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Featured jobs
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University of Melbourne —
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Featured events
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Business School, Dr Chau Chak Wing Bldg, 14-28 Ultimo Road, Sydney, New South Wales, 2007, Australia — University of Technology Sydney
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RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia — RMIT University
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Business School, Dr Chau Chak Wing Bldg, 14-28 Ultimo Road, Sydney, New South Wales, 2007, Australia — University of Technology Sydney
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Esplanade Hotel Fremantle, 46-54 Marine Terrace, Fremantle WA, Perth, Western Australia, 6160, Australia — Curtin University
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