Hurry Up And Wait
We enjoyed a nice reveal by the team at Four Corners this week. It appears the Government’s bean counters have set yet another standard for creative counting — producing a number which makes reality look a lot better than it should.
It appears that the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing has engineered a new way of counting people waiting for in-home aged care. As a result, more than 53,000 clients, who would normally be on the list, have been removed because their situations have been reclassified.
This has enabled the government to claim that the waiting list has dropped to 100,000 since it introduced its aged care reforms in November. Four Corners reports that if the old counting method had been used the number of people waiting for full funding would be higher than before a Royal Commission 8 years ago.
The Algorithm Knows Best
The ABC report also examined the impact of the algorithm which determines who should or should not receive in-home aged care. Industry professionals are comparing it to the algorithm behind the Robodebt debacle which hurt so many Australians.
Here’s a thought: It’s all very well being told that computers and algorithms will make life easier. It’s another story when they make decisions about people and nobody can explain exactly how they arrived at them.
The problem isn’t technology. It’s what happens when an algorithm is given responsibility for decisions that affect real people, while the humans responsible for the system can’t—or won’t—explain the result.
If a computer gets your weather forecast wrong, you shrug and keep an umbrella close by. If it gets your aged-care assessment wrong, you’re entitled to expect somebody to answer the damn phone.
Hello, It’s Me. Except It Isn’t
Scammers are becoming increasingly convincing, thanks in no small part to artificial intelligence.
ASIC says more than 19,400 websites, social media ads, phishing scams and cryptocurrency investment scams were removed during the last financial year—an increase of 182 per cent.
AI is now being used to create fake videos, websites, reviews and celebrity endorsements. Among the Australians whose identities have been impersonated are Anthony Albanese, Jacqui Lambie, Alan Kohler and John Laws.
Rich lister, Twiggy Forrest, is currently engaged in a massive court battle with Meta over hundreds of Facebook ads in which his image was used to scam millions of dollars from victims.
While fame often comes with wealth and influence it also comes with the possibility of being digitally kidnapped and used to steal from the vulnerable and stupid with little recourse to the law unless you have very, very deep pockets.
Generosity Apparently
The gambling industry has apparently discovered a new word for inducements: “generosities”.
The term emerged during a Senate inquiry into proposed gambling reforms, where betting companies sought to portray as harmless inducements which are designed to encourage people to gamble more.
These inducements included, bonus bets, money-back offers and enhanced odds. They are often aggressively promoted to people who already lose heavily.
In a submission to a Senate inquiry, the industry objected to use of the word inducement to describe its questionable activities preferring “generosities” instead.
It sounded very much like trying to put lipstick on a pig.
Grandma’s Not Moving
For years, policymakers have looked hopefully at older Australians sitting in large family homes and imagined a festival of downsizing.
Unfortunately, the event has been cancelled.
Research has found that among owner-occupiers aged 55 and above in 2001, 80 per cent were still living in exactly the same home 14 years later. The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute concluded that fewer than 10 per cent of owner-occupiers actually downsize.
Not surprising.
If you’ve spent decades turning a house into a home, the idea of selling it so someone else can build a townhouse where the veggie patch used to be isn’t necessarily irresistible.
Relying on older Australians to vacate the family home just because they have had a birthday isn’t much of a housing policy.
Don’t Believe The Label
The Government has asked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate allegations of misleading labels on food products. After all, if you’re paying more because of what the label says, you’d reasonably expect the label to tell the truth.
The Government says that to combat the cheats it has increased penalties up $100 million. It has also given the ACCC a similar amount to keep an eye out for the bad guys.
Good. Because if a packet of food tells you it contains one thing when it contains another it’s not clever marketing. It’s fraud.
Read the Government’s statement
A Little Bit Of Good News
For older men, there was at least one piece of news this week that didn’t involve a waiting list, a computer making mysterious decisions or somebody trying to separate us from our money.
New prostate cancer guidelines will see GPs offer PSA testing from age 45 and remove the previous upper age cut-off. Men over 70 may continue two-yearly testing if they have a life expectancy of more than seven years.
The guidelines also move away from routine digital rectal examinations and recommend MRI before biopsy where PSA levels are elevated.
The aim is to find potentially aggressive cancers earlier while reducing unnecessary biopsies and treatment.
For those of us who have never regarded the prospect of a routine digital examination as the highlight of a doctor’s appointment, it is also welcome news.
The Salty Summary
This week’s news has provided plenty of reasons to be suspicious of anything that arrives wrapped in impressive numbers, official language or a reassuring computer-generated face. What to do? Remain sceptical. Believe no one unless they can explain it in plain English and even then check the fine print,
Someone Had to Say It!
