Ten4Ten ofers students skills building opportunity

Woolworths expands controversial self-checkout AI

Jonathan Mullins

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Artifcial Intelligence (AI) is only impacting high-tech industries - predicting the social media posts you're likely to engage with, forecasting stock market movements, or fnding a new gene therapy to cure a rare disease. But in reality, AI is transforming every industry across the globe.

rewards card (again) is not as straightforward as it seems. Entrusting the responsibility for making complex decisions about a customer's integrity to AI is fraught.

A unique opportunity for ten Year 11 students from Cabonne to learn skills and be mentored by community leaders is now available.

Regional Development Australia Central West (RDA) is excited to be hosting the TEN4TEN Future Leaders Year 11 Leadership Dialogue - an opportunity for ten specially chosen Year 11 students to come together with ten community leaders for a fantastic two-way conversation and mentorship opportunity.

Students are invited to submit a written application of up to 300 words outlining why they believe they should be selected to participate in this program. Successful applicants will have the opportunity to:

* Attend a meet & greet event, followed by dinner, with ten local community leaders selected as TEN4TEN mentors for 2023.

* Visit NSW Parliament House in Sydney, where they will be hosted by the State Member for Orange, Phil Donato MP.

* Visit Parliament House in Canberra, where they will be hosted by the Federal Member for Calare, Andrew Gee, MP.

* Attend regular group activities throughout the year.

* Connect with and be mentored by our inspiring community leaders and innovators.

The ten inspiring mentors are from a range of backgrounds, industries, and sectors.

RDA Central West director, Wayne Sunderland said the mentors would ofer participating students an opportunity to be part of a unique and inspiring experience with these recognisable local leaders.

“Students have the opportunity to learn from and connect with our community leaders through this experience, while also getting a direct insight into what career opportunities are available right here in the Central West," he said.

The mentors for the 2023 TEN4TEN program are:

• Gerald Power – Deputy Mayor, Orange City Council

• Peita Mages – Director at Clever Cookie Academy

• Phil Donato MP – Member for Orange

• Amy van de Ven – Franchisee, Quest Orange

• Andrew Gee MP – Federal Member for Calare

• Jessica Hickman –Founder of Bullyology

• Sonia Thew –Medical Doctor and Lecturer in Medicine at Charles Sturt University

• Ben Watts –Owner of Bralca

• Alison Neville –Solicitor, Blackwell Short Lawyers

• Craig Murphy

– Senior Project Manager at Charles Sturt University and IT Consultant Applications close on Tuesday, 7 March 2023 and can be submitted online via the RDA Central West website.

It’s no surprise, then, that Woolworths is deploying this powerful new technology at their self-checkouts. Not only does it promise to speed up the process of selecting your fresh food items [it's actually pretty good at diferentiating an eggplant from a mandarin], but also promises to assist their "stock loss prevention" eforts - a fancy way of describing the process of catching teenagers stealing chocolate bars.

It’s understandable that Woolworths is implementing AI to automate the seemingly mechanical task of grocery shopping.

However, replacing the role of a friendly cashier who scans your weekly purchases and inquires about your

Humans are uniquely exceptional at understanding context, reading the room, getting the vibe of a situation, and using judgement. The current state of AI, on the other hand, is exceptional at producing answers to very specifc problems based on huge datasets of curated training data. Spotting the diference between an eggplant and a mandarin is a considerably simpler problem than determining if someone is likely to be shoplifting.

Woolworths is facing backlash from privacy advocates about the use of in-store cameras to facilitate this new approach to "customer experience" and "stock loss prevention." However, the bigger issue at hand is that companies are experimenting with these new, AI-driven decisionmaking systems with little or no scrutiny or regulation on how they are developed and audited.

An experimental AI developed in the United States last year was tasked with predicting the likelihood of criminal reofending - it was demonstrated to be producing biassed decisions for people of colour. This was not a fundamental faw with the technology, but rather a consequence of it being “trained” on a dataset that was not signifcantly diverse and representative of the broader population. Thankfully the technology is not (yet) being used to make sentencing decisions for real people.

AI is a powerful tool that has the potential to improve productivity, efciency, and innovation across a wide range of industries. It promises to be yet another leap forward for humans to focus their energy on creative and strategic thinking, leaving the more mundane and repetitive tasks to the machines.

But as has been the case with the advent of every technological breakthrough, we have a long road ahead.

NSW Reconstruction brings Pod living to Molong for food-afected residents

The NSW Reconstruction Authority, formerly Resilience NSW, has been introducing POD living to food-afected communities across Cabonne Shire.

Around 165 modules have been made available to people across the Cabonne Council area, which include Eugowra and food-hit areas of Cudal and Molong.

The $40 million pod program will soon be rolled out to other councils in the Central West.

Once set-up the module homes are kitted out with washing and drying facilities, an ensuite, a kitchen, wardrobe, furniture and a television.

Thank you to Xanthe Gregory (ABC Central West) for access to this story.

150-year-old cottage is repaired and made livable again. "We are so incredibly happy to be able to live on our block again and to start work on our garden, fencing and repairs to our home," Paul said.

"We're both very grateful to the NSW Reconstruction Authority team for their support and fantastic and compassionate help." Paul is pictured above a few weeks ago when the NSW Reconstruction Authority team arrived to help. Pictured with Paul are Brad (representing the installation company), Sharryn Lewis and Maddie Sirris from the NSW Reconstruction Authority.