Every day, we publish a selection of your emails in our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you, you can email us at yoursay@theconversation.edu.au.
Monday May 18
AI may not be conscious, but who is?
“Koplin and Moss do a great job in debunking the idea of AI consciousness through a clear explanation of the mechanics of AI. But if AI is not actually ‘thinking’ (ie. simply calculating the probable best response based on frequency in the data set) it seems to me that the same unthinking responses occur in 95% of interactions between people in most social situations. But every now and again we experience ‘real’ conversations – a genuine encounter with someone else where you can be your genuine self: not just programmed answers, not just rehashing what is already known. How do we consistently have those sort of encounters? The challenge of AI (one of many) is how do I/we be more of what makes us human?”
Paul Robertson
Frozen shoulder woes
“Frozen shoulders are just horrible! Nowhere is there any decent documentation on how much your daily activities are going to change. It can be humiliating and for me, it took up to 50 times longer (yes, 50) to do things I used to complete in a few seconds. I hesitated to get cortisone injections because I was scared by so many horror stories I had heard. My pain specialist justified every cent I paid him by the care and time he and the nurse took to keep me calm and complete the 2 injections I had in my shoulder. Between that, the exercises I did almost every day and regular physio, I have almost full movement again. The pain has reduced but has never completely gone even with a high dose of nerve blockers the whole time. I digress, it was a good article but surprising that nerve blockers were not mentioned, they helped me when the pain was so severe. Yet pleased the article didn’t mention any of that rubbish about ‘pushing through the pain’ – thanks for that.”
Shirley Allen, ACT 
Tuesday May 19
Reining in specialist fees
“There is another, fifth option to regulate specialist fees that could be considered based on an existing Federal Government initiative, that is missing from Anthony Scott’s otherwise insightful article. The Health Department could build upon the existing Urgent Care Centres (UCC) network by setting up ‘specialist centres’ which could even co-exist at the UCC. The medical specialists could be employed directly by the Federal Government or agree to bulk bill the consultations as a trade for functioning without any administrative or overhead costs. These specialists would operate much like a medical specialist at a private clinic, receiving referrals from GPs, organising appropriate investigations using off-site providers and allow individuals to access specialist medical services that are free at the point of care for patients. These clinics could also provide effective price competition for other providers in the area, while still providing individuals with options and choices of provider that are absolutely integral to the provision of health care in Australia.”
Yun Hwang, Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney
What’s driving tradies away?
“I was very interested in your article regarding five possible reasons for the shortage of tradespeople and apprentices. Judging by the awful stories of hazing and poor pay, the treatment of workers and poor safety would have to be a major reason. Who would be comfortable with their child being on a building site? The unprofessional workplaces and misogyny coupled with poor building standards would put off a lot of potential apprentices and cause the braver ones to leave. If we were focusing on building homes to live in (and not just for builders to sell) and if they were sustainable and part of an aspirational future surely this would engage future tradies?”
Jane D
The gift of language
“A foreign language is not just a tool for communicating. It’s a signal of respect and the extension of a hand of friendship, a gift of an effort made to relate and to share. The effort of learning a language is not just about ‘acquiring knowledge’. It’s the gift of making the effort. Using AI doesn’t make the effort, it avoids it. And that avoidance increases barriers to reciprocal relationships. In the eyes of the other party, using AI for language diminishes the AI user.”
Glen Davis, NSW
Wednesday May 20
For the greater good
“An interesting commentary this morning about reactions to the budget and the rarity of people thinking about the greater good. My previous local Federal MP was Michael Suukar who was also Minister for Housing and Assistant Treasurer. I wrote to him several times pleading for action on the CGT discount and negative gearing. None was forthcoming. Despite being a 71-year-old boomer, with the benefit of previous investments in residential property, I’m very pleased to see Jim Chalmers take a bold step in the right direction. It’s not the only action necessary, and there may be some unexpected reactions/outcomes, but I certainly believe the changes are in the interest of greater public good and should assist the younger generation who have been hard-done-by for a long time.”
David Hubbard
Who pays the price?
“The government has not looked at how the young are saving their money to get into home ownership. A bank saving account won’t give you a decent return to increase your deposit. Many are putting their savings into shares or buying an investment property to make significant capital gains to increase the deposit. Do they not think the negative gearing or capital gains tax will not affect them? Certainly not helping those trying to save for a deposit. They just think they are hurting the rich or those that are self-funded. There are a lot of low income earners trying to get ahead by savvy investing for capital gains to get that deposit.”
Robyn Clarke
Can’t find a tradie?
“There is no doubt an issue with trade training and bringing young tradies through the system but we overlook another labour pool which are aspiring homeowners themselves. My father built his first house and helped me build my second. Neither of us are/were builders. It doesn’t take a lot of training to be able to build a large part of a house by yourself if it’s designed with the owner-builder’s capabilities in mind and thought is given to the materials used. If more people built their own homes they would save money. Better still, use some of the savings to employ an architect and join the 1-2% of the population who have a house that could be called environmentally sustainable.”
David Oliver, Oxley ACT
Thursday May 21
AI slop in science publishing
“It’s with growing concern that I read about the use of AI in scientific publications and the increase in AI slop. As a former scientist, I was subjected to the publish or perish environment during my career, something that seemed to get worse over the years. It was also apparent that part of the response to this dilemma was to include more authors on a paper; a tactic to show the ‘increased productivity of individual authors’ as a result of an increase in ‘collaborative projects’. In reality, only a certain number of these authors may have actually contributed to the work or the writing of the paper. The journals are quite specific on the matter of authorship, i.e. if you do not make a meaningful contribution to work and drafting of the paper you should not appear on the list of authors. Adhering to this principle does not win many favours in certain quarters. Perhaps the new bans imposed by the website arXiv will make it less attractive for scientists to add their name to a list of authors on papers for which they contributed little input or effort or at the very least, it may encourage all the authors to critically read drafts of papers prior to publication.”
Thomas Fitzgibbon
Body language
“I had a great chuckle at the photo of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in your article about shaking hands. For those readers who have done any body language seminars, Mr Trump is showing a deference to Mr Xi by holding his hand out with his palm up instead of horizontal and Mr Xi is in the dominant position on top of Mr Trump’s. No wonder the reports on the meeting suggested that nothing came of the meeting to favour the USA with Mr Trump showing his inner self as inferior to Mr Xi.”
Paul Campbell, Brisbane
A solution to the housing problem?
“The issue of housing – for buyers and renters – is front and centre of many social concerns and also the difficulty of building the new properties quickly. I’m at a loss to understand why serious attention seems not to be being given to 3D printed housing. There are some companies out there that have been making great strides in this structural innovation.”
Linda Black
Friday May 22
Transgender rights
“What people often fail to consider when discussing transgender and gender-diverse rights is that trans people have existed since ancient times in many cultures. Transgender identities were erased and pathologised through processes of Western colonisation, which has high influence on the discourse we see today – that transgender people are dangerous, illegitimate or harm Western notions of binary sex. Current scientific literature shows that biological sex is much less binary than we originally thought, and contains natural variations across chromosomal, reproductive and hormonal systems. Cases such as Tickle vs Giggle are an important step in reinstating transgender people’s right to exist in modern society. Contrary to England and the United States, Australia has shown we are willing to give others a fair go, and the opportunity to live free and equal. We should be proud of this achievement.”
Jade Barber
Breaking up with big tech
“Digital autonomy is an impossibility in Australia (or elsewhere I expect) because one cannot buy a phone or computer that allows autonomy. I have divorced myself from social media platforms and I try not to use the alleged assistance tools but in reality I know that this is all futile because the machines and their operating systems will not allow real independence unless I completely shut down electronics. That looks increasingly attractive but I cannot even manage my banking and finance without it.”
Gerard McDonald
Start small
“For many years I have been following the debate about affordable housing, most recently 3D printing. It seems to me, an aging boomer who bought her first house at age 20, that at least part of the problem lies in the fact that houses today are at least twice or three times the size of houses I and my contemporaries bought in the 1960s. If young people were willing to start small, more houses could be built and each would cost less.”
Chris Free