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Inside Story

@insidestory.bsky.social
693 followers 316 following 190 posts

Books, ideas, current affairs and culture from a (mainly) Australian perspective

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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 1h
His latest biographer discerns in Hobsbawm an “apparent talent for always being in the right place at the right time.” He was a skilled networker, adept at identifying useful contacts, and had a keen nose for entrepreneurial opportunities. Andrew Bonnell reviews The Age of Hobsbawm.
inside.org.au
The age of Hobsbawm • Inside Story
The Alexandria-born British historian, raised in prewar Vienna and Berlin, straddled the decades like a colossus
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Dominic Kelly @dominickelly.bsky.social · 4h
Sensible takes on Victorian politics are very rare; a nice relief to read this excellent piece by Paul Strangio. insidestory.org.au/oh-victoria-...
insidestory.org.au
Oh Victoria, Victoria! • Paul Strangio
A kind of dread hangs over the state as the November election approaches
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 4h
“Since Wong’s declaration, Australia has been busy signing treaties to embrace the Islands and shut out China. The mutual defence agreements with Papua New Guinea (Oct 2025) and Fiji (July 2026) are Australia’s first formal alliances since signing the ANZUS treaty with the US and NZ in 1951.”
inside.org.au
Australia’s security race in the South Pacific • Graeme Dobell
Are we to be neighbours or family in the Islands?
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 6h
“John Howard labelled Victoria ‘the Massachusetts of Australia’ following Daniel Andrews’s crushing victory over the Coalition at the 2018 state election: a coded way of saying the state was unamenable to the brand of muscular conservatism he had done so much to imbue in the Liberal Party.”
inside.org.au
Oh Victoria, Victoria! • Paul Strangio
A kind of dread hangs over the state as the November election approaches
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 6h
“‘Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man,’ was the quote the Australian TV producer chose for the opening sequence of 7 Up, which was to turn into one of the most widely influential and sustained social projects in television history…”
inside.org.au
Examined lives • Jane Goodall
Sixty-three years later, the 7 Up series draws to a close
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“Dressed in a suit but no tie, standing on the stage without a lectern (reading from autocues artfully positioned above and below eye level, so he could look up for idealism and down for seriousness), Burnham spoke for more than an hour. It was an electrifying performance.”
inside.org.au
Burnham slays ’em • Michael Jacobs
The new British PM’s charismatic speech to Labour’s conference won over even the most jaded commentators. But will it be enough?
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Jeff Sparrow @jeffsparrow1.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Nice review of the new book insidestory.org.au/lust-for-rad...
insidestory.org.au
Lust for radical life • Cathy Perkins
Melbourne poet Lesbia Harford opted for a life of political activism
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“Perhaps it helped Daniel Okrent that he never met the subject of his compulsively readable new book, Stephen Sondheim: Art Isn’t Easy, because the author gets closer to the composer and lyricist than any previous biographer.” @yalepress.bsky.social
inside.org.au
Try humming this • Andrew Ford
Although he was sometimes seen purely as a lyricist, words and music were inseparable in Stephen Sondheim’s art
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
“We’re doing basically exactly what these tech bros seem to want and negotiating with them like they’re sovereign nations,” says independent senator David Pocock.
inside.org.au
Will Australia become AI’s copyright-busting safe haven? • Karen Middleton
The AI giants want the federal government to okay a backdoor way of seizing creative material from around the world
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
“In Schleswig-Holstein, a liberal Christian Democrat premier decided to isolate the far-right AfD after it entered state parliament for the first time. He was uncompromising. The result: at the 2022 elections, his party’s vote increased by 11.4 percentage points…” insidestory.org.au/could-german...
inside.org.au
Could German history repeat itself? • Klaus Neumann
German democracy is in serious trouble. Does it need a Jürgen Klopp to fix it?
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
“So, it’s not just Australian stuff that they want access to — it’s around the world, with our laws?” There was a moment of silence. The officials nodded but didn’t speak. — Karen Middleton on Big AI’s copyright grab
inside.org.au
Will Australia become AI’s copyright-busting safe haven? • Karen Middleton
The AI giants want the federal government to okay a backdoor way of seizing creative material from around the world
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“A key insight from Judge Rooke was that the emerging legal arguments by ‘sovereign citizens’ were not spreading randomly. They were organised, packaged and sold. The entrepreneurial ‘gurus,’ as Rooke called them, had built an industry around grievance.”
inside.org.au
Judge Rooke vs sovereign citizens • Harry Hobbs & Stephen Young
How a Canadian judge took on the entrepreneurs selling pseudolaw
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“It wasn’t easy to get close to Stephen Sondheim. The composer Mary Rodgers said, ‘If you walk into a room he’ll ignore you. And if you ignore him, then he’ll come over and say hello. It’s like some goddam cat!’”
inside.org.au
Try humming this • Andrew Ford
Although he was sometimes seen purely as a lyricist, words and music were inseparable in Stephen Sondheim’s art
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“This concocted, romanticised domestic harmony is what Fiona Sampson sets out to demolish in her new biography. ‘To become George Sand required will, imagination and chutzpah,’ she writes.”
inside.org.au
Bold precursor • Sara Dowse
“To become George Sand required will, imagination and chutzpah,” says the French writer’s latest biographer
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Fortune Park is a creature of a very particular kind of schooling system, one that allows a very few schools to charge a bomb, thus keeping out all except the already ‘privileged’ as well as furnishing the wherewithal for that home-away-from-home feel.”
inside.org.au
Schooled for ruling • Dean Ashenden
Seeing an “elite” English boys’ school up close is only partially revealing
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Pat Sajak’s #1 Fan @flickityflarn.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I get why it's tempting to look at the people in that hall where he spoke tonight and feel nothing but contempt. But they didn't start this, and there's an excellent chance we'd never have seen this side of the country if the GOP had done its job as a party: insidestory.org.au/the-populist...
insidestory.org.au
The populist phantom • Inside Story
Democracy erodes from the top
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michaelujacobs.bsky.social @michaelujacobs.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Will this summer’s record temperatures and wildfires in Europe make any difference to climate policy? In a piece for @insidestory.bsky.social I look at new polling evidence. Support for climate policy is increasing, but so are left-right divisions on it. insidestory.org.au/europe-takes...
insidestory.org.au
Europe takes the heat • Michael Jacobs
Has a blazing summer changed public opinion about climate change — or shifted government thinking?
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jackhsmit.bsky.social @jackhsmit.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Karen Middleton on The BIG, BIG, BIG issue of #Datacentres in #auspol. “Just ahead of #ALP #Conf Albanese moved to take control of debate, defining and defending the combined pro-innovation, pro-data-centres and pro-regulation policy his government is pursuing.” insidestory.org.au/we-are-walki...
insidestory.org.au
Labor and AI: “We are walking and chewing gum at the same time.” • Karen Middleton
The federal government believes Australia can tap into the benefits of AI while coping with the pitfalls
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
“Even if it is a bit of a stretch to claim the entire modern world was created by the financial crises of the 2nd half of the 19th century, modern Australia certainly was — though not in 1873.” John Edwards reviews ‘1873: The Rothschilds, the First Great Depression, & the Making of the Modern World’
inside.org.au
The year the bubble burst • John Edwards
The 1873 crash might not have created the modern world, but it does have a message for today
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Erin Cook @erincook.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
This has some interesting pars on Downer and Indonesia - he went there TWENTY SEVEN times! insidestory.org.au/the-life-and...
insidestory.org.au
The life and times of Australia’s longest-serving foreign minister • Graeme Dobell
Alexander Downer, born politician, born of the Liberal Party
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
New post: "Madmen and realists" In which I look at the disaster of Trump's foreign policy. And options for what it could look like under a president who is a bully in obvious cognitive decline. (Free to read) samf.substack.com/p/madmen-and...
samf.substack.com
Madmen and Realists
US foreign policy under Trump and beyond
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
“Albanese has referred to the Pope’s encyclical repeatedly… He endorsed Pope Leo’s reminder that technology, far from being neutral, adopts the character of those who create, define and use it.”
inside.org.au
Labor and AI: “We are walking and chewing gum at the same time.” • Karen Middleton
The federal government believes Australia can tap into the benefits of AI while coping with the pitfalls
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Jo @jo8may.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Another must read from Ashenden! I’m reading Michael J. Sandel’s The Tyranny of Merit which owes much to The Rise of the Meritocracy, “An Essay on Education & Equality.” Schooling in Oz is based on brazenly crafted futures - prizes for some, humiliation for others. insidestory.org.au/what-michael...
insidestory.org.au
What Michael Young actually said • Dean Ashenden
Even its admirers get The Rise of the Meritocracy wrong
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Gillen Tener Martin @gillenmartin.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I've long wanted a word with whomstever determines what rises to the level of "breaking news" and justifies entering my inbox as such @nytimes.com
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
“What does One Nation’s victory in Saturday’s by-election tell us we didn’t already know? I can’t think of anything. We know from polls that the party is riding high, and from SA’s election that its surveyed support can go through to the ballot box.”
inside.org.au
Another port in the storm • Peter Brent
What the Secret Harbour by-election does and doesn’t tell us
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
“It’s sometimes unclear whether the US has thought out its proposals or is sabotaging the negotiations… An example was the last-minute demand to relax Canadian bilingual packaging requirements for American goods: any informed observer would know this would be dynamite in French-speaking Canada.”
inside.org.au
Canada’s border war • Jonathan Malloy
Donald Trump’s bullying continues to give Mark Carney enormous political latitude
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
“They are part of a global romance-scam market estimated to have netted a collective US$1.3 billion in 2022 — and the total might be much higher given that many of the victims are too embarrassed to admit they have been duped.”
inside.org.au
All the lonely people • Gordon Peake
In pursuit of the man who scammed his mother, a journalist finds a different kind of victim
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
“Another more left-field intervention — Pope Leo XIV’s May encyclical on safeguarding humans in the time of AI — has carried considerable weight with Albanese and sections of his government… Albanese has referred to the encyclical repeatedly.”
inside.org.au
Labor and AI: “We are walking and chewing gum at the same time.” • Karen Middleton
The federal government believes Australia can tap into the benefits of AI while coping with the pitfalls
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Natalie Bennett @nataliegreenpeer.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Well said “Equality” is properly understood as a grand ideal, a demand from below for respect. Applied to schooling, must be not just in day-to-day interactions between teacher & taught but in relationship between kids & their lives" insidestory.org.au/what-michael...
insidestory.org.au
What Michael Young actually said • Dean Ashenden
Even its admirers get The Rise of the Meritocracy wrong
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
“Published nearly 70 years ago, 'The Rise of the Meritocracy’ is enjoying a second life, thanks mainly to its remarkable prescience: it foresaw a populist revolt against meritocratic elite… and, what’s more, it explained in close detail why things would turn out as they have.”
insidestory.org.au
What Michael Young actually said • Dean Ashenden
Even its admirers get The Rise of the Meritocracy wrong
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Dominic Kelly @dominickelly.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Got a new review up at @insidestory.bsky.social. insidestory.org.au/one-theory-t...
insidestory.org.au
One theory to explain it all • Dominic Kelly
How did Cultural Marxism become the right’s all-purpose pejorative?
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
“An almost slavish adherence to the narrative of dislocation and dissatisfaction is distracting many journalists from what is unfolding before their eyes: Albanese’s steady-as-you-go evolution into a long-term occupant of the prime minister’s office.”
inside.org.au
Albanese’s lengthening innings • Paul Strangio
The prime minister is bucking the high-casualty trend among leaders
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Libby Robin @libbydeq.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
insidestory.org.au/orders-from-... Listen to the locals! There are a lot of voters living in public housing and with families there who are worried about the housing crisis circling us.
insidestory.org.au
Orders from above • Peter Mares
Victoria’s new premier should abandon the state’s sledgehammer approach to Melbourne’s public housing towers
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
“Vance’s people are the white working class… and he champions their interests in a way that chimes with Catholic tribalism. To translate it into Australian, it is a little like the B.A. Santamaria–DLP Catholicism of family and patriarchal order, still active in Tony Abbott’s worldview.”
inside.org.au
By his fruits shall we know him? • Robert Phiddian
J.D. Vance follows Hillbilly Elegy with a tale of religious revelation
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
“Vance really can write, and ‘Communion’ is very clearly in the same voice as ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ albeit a voice muted by the pontification proper for a public figure considerably older than Vance’s 41 years.” Robert Phiddian reviews J.D. Vance’s ‘Communion.’ insidestory.org.au/by-his-fruit...
insidestory.org.au
By his fruits shall we know him? • Robert Phiddian
J.D. Vance follows Hillbilly Elegy with a tale of religious revelation
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
“I have travelled the world in an attempt to expose linguicide,” writes @sophiasgaler.bsky.social. Jim Davidson reviews her new book, How to Kill a Language: “carefully researched, written with flair, and illuminated by personal encounters.”
inside.org.au
Tongue-tied no more • Jim Davidson
An urgent plea to save linguistic diversity across the world
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
“Of particular interest, as reported in Capital Brief’s Political Capital newsletter, was Demos’s finding that One Nation support among people earning more than $200,000 a year had ‘peeled away from both major parties’ since its last MRP in January to March.”
inside.org.au
Three-cornered contest • Peter Brent
One Nation’s support remains surprising high, but the implications for the next election are less clear
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
“The book industry as a whole is in a period of recovery rather than decline. The number of independent bookstores in the country has grown by 70 per cent since 2020, as Literary Hub noted last month. The US bookselling chain Barnes & Noble opened fifty-five new locations in 2025.”
inside.org.au
Is this what a post-literate era looks like? • David Wallace-Wells
What the numbers say about changing reading habits
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
“A Labor majority would be a miracle — greater than the one bestowed by the Almighty on Scott Morrison in 2019. ‘Winning,’ for Carroll, would be somehow keeping enough seats, and getting a good enough crossbench, that he somehow gets a real go at being premier.“
inside.org.au
A wing and a prayer • James Murphy and Tenzin Liddy-Corlett
Can a new premier turn around the Victorian government’s electoral fortunes?
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
“Slobodian and Tarnoff understand well that what is distinctive about this era is the particular configurations of private and public power that Elon Musk, this man at this moment, is exploiting and shaping.” insidestory.org.au/sovereignty-...
inside.org.au
Sovereignty at your service • Jock Given
Elon Musk “never lost sight of how the power to build and the power to rule were intertwined”
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
“For creatives, educators and carers, the application of productivity and efficiency values — even before they were expressed in AI form — seems like a category error in any attempt to grasp the purpose and value of their work.”
inside.org.au
What are we building? • Frances Flanagan
A reporter documents the good, the bad and the ugly of AI in the workplace
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
“The messy life of the country — mostly lived far from Capital Hill — exercises its own sway, increasingly independent of the traditional institutions of Australian democracy. The hollowed-out parties are the most obvious casualty of this process, the teal independents the major beneficiaries.”
inside.org.au
Australian twilight, Liberal swansong? • Frank Bongiorno
Veteran journalist Paul Kelly grapples with three prime ministers and the party they led
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
“Where Nolan’s Odyssey falls away, however, is in its conception of the figure at the centre; it is as if all the contradiction, intensity and excess of the character has shrunk into a symbolic figure of earnestness and atonement, given more weight to carry than he can bear.”
inside.org.au
Hit and myth • Philippa Hawker
Christopher Nolan’s high-stakes version of The Odyssey strikes some targets but avoids others
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
“What emerges is not a ledger of winners and losers but a set of skilfully drawn portraits of power, self-awareness, hard choices and collective contestation.” Frances Flanagan reviews @sarahoconnorft.ft.com's ‘We Are Not Machines.’
inside.org.au
What are we building? • Frances Flanagan
A reporter documents the good, the bad and the ugly of AI in the workplace
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
“For Kelly, the new era demanded political and intellectual skills beyond the capacities not just of three prime ministers but also of the overall political system.” Frank Bongiorno reviews Paul Kelly’s ‘The Twilight of Exceptionalism’
inside.org.au
Australian twilight, Liberal swansong? • Frank Bongiorno
Veteran journalist Paul Kelly grapples with three prime ministers and the party they led
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Quinn Slobodian @quinnslobodian.com · 22/07/2026
Review of our book for @insidestory.bsky.social with helpful overview of why Australia is a growth market for Starlink in particular. insidestory.org.au/sovereignty-...
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Sean Ulm @seanulm.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Thanks to Ian McShane and @insidestory.bsky.social for a lovely review of our new book The First Inventors: How People Shaped a Continent! inside.org.au/shaping-a-co... @ciehf.bsky.social @jcuofficial.bsky.social
inside.org.au
Shaping a continent • Inside Story
A 65,000-year account of Indigenous knowledge brings science and history into dialogue
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
“I wheeled away from the screen and looked at her for a long minute. A colleague was passing and I called her into my office. ‘That,’ she declared, peering over my shoulder, ‘is someone I’d want to know more about. She is a real person.’”
inside.org.au
Three portraits of a lady • Anne-Marie Condé
In the absence of textual evidence, what does the photographic record reveal about Mary Cook?
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Inside Story @insidestory.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
“Flanner’s coverage of war crimes perpetrated by the Nazis, her reportage of the Nuremberg trials and her work on the Nazi looting of priceless cultural artefacts were indefatigable. And they inflected the New Yorker’s style and outlook thereafter.” inside.org.au/just-the-thing
inside.org.au
Just the thing • Patrick Mullins
Janet Flanner’s despatches from Paris helped make the New Yorker a better magazine than its founder envisaged
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Holly Cullen @hollycullenfreo.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
I wrote a review essay on a new book on the development of AI targeting in the US - Project Maven by @katrinamanson.bsky.social As an international lawyer, I ask whether current international law is adequate to regulate AI use (probably not) and what are the barriers to more effective regulation.
inside.org.au
Rules of engagement • Holly Cullen
Are we asking the right questions about the military use of artificial intelligence?
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