7 August 2026

Welcome

The tech industry is mostly run by a bunch of weird men. This is not news, of course, just an observation. See this week’s lead item. Anyway, let’s just get on with it.

The tech bro mutual appreciation society?

Craig Scroggie, chief executive of Australia’s biggest independent datacentre provider NextDC, has built 40 AI clones of himself and his executive team, and eats the same seven meals every day, reports the AFR Magazine in a feature-length profile ($).

“[He] is probably the most AI-pilled chief executive of any company on the Australian Securities Exchange,” writes business reporter Amelia McGuire.

The whole thing is weird and, in a possibly frightening way, compelling reading.

But even more interesting is a section about Scroggie’s friendship with Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar.

“The pair are friends and part of an invitation-only group of Australian tech executives, which also includes Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes, Canva’s Cliff Obrecht, SafetyCulture’s Luke Anear, Freelancer chief executive Matt Barrie and Kogan founder Ruslan Kogan, who have met up for the past decade to discuss issues plaguing the tech sector and to seek and share advice. The only rule for their catch-ups? Don’t talk about them, especially to media,” McGuire writes.

Over at The Sizzle — you do subscribe to The Sizzle, right? — Anthony Agius described it as a “secret club”. I suppose it is.

So I wonder, when does a private chat to discuss matters of mutual interest become a conspiracy? Should we be worried? Or is this just some Australians cosplaying the Bilderberg Group or the Bohemian Grove?

Side Note: An opinion piece at The Mandarin asks: Who will build the prime minister’s AI vision?. I think we know the answer.

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Also in the news this week

• In a late-Friday press release last week, the eSafety Commissioner revealed that three months after the teen social media ban came into effect, 81.5% of under-16s were still using social media, down a mere five percentage points. “As the data was collected just three months after the legislation came into effect, it is too early to meaningfully assess whether the policy’s intended outcomes have been achieved,” says the press release, but did we ever have measurable targets for this policy?

• The Australian Signals Directorate has published guidance for boards of directors on the “cyber threat considerations” relating to “frontier AI models”. I so hate that term.

• The government has published its 2026 Defence Innovation, Science and Technology Strategy, which obviously includes the words “artificial intelligence” and “quantum technologies”, among other funky things.

• Monash University has partnered with cybersecurity provider CyberCX, now part of Accenture, to create a new three-year Bachelor of CyberAI (Industry Co-Lab) degree.

• Kmart has been selling knock-offs of Meta’s camera glasses for $89 under the chain’s Anko brand, and the first batch has all sold out. In a broader report, Digital Rights Watch says such glasses are a covert surveillance regime in a wearable disguise. Electronic Frontiers Australia has called for a regulatory ban, describing the glasses as “inherently unethical, highly intrusive, and in many practical applications, potentially unlawful”.

• While this happened “Elsewhere”, it fits here. Search engine DuckDuckGo released “Normal F***ing Sunglasses” that carry no camera, no microphone, no battery, and no electronics of any kind. They sold out in less than a week. Well played.

• From The Conversation, “What three million online posts reveal about anti‑First Nations hate in Australia”.

• It’s at the state level but it’s serious enough to mention here. The NSW government is planning to give police the power to download a smartphones’ entire contents without a warrant by connecting it to a device made by Israeli digital forensics company Cellebrite — all without needing the good citizens of NSW to unlock the device.

CORRECTION: Or at least a clarification. NSW police already have the power, as the article explains, “to require people to provide access to their digital devices, in order to facilitate a scan and download of their content on execution of a warrant and at threat of prison”. The new law would extend that power to “more routine arrests, roadside stops and other lawful detentions,” without having a warrant. The Cellebrite device would then be used to suck out the device’s contents — although Cellebrite can reportedly be used on some locked devices.

LATEST PODCAST: A CHAT WITH THE VOICE OF NEWCASTLE: A few weeks ago I went to Newcastle, the Australian one, and spent some time chatting with the voice of Newcastle herself, Carol Duncan OAM. She was ABC Radio’s morning presenter for quite some years, then she was a city councillor, and she does a lot of other things too. I think you’ll enjoy The 9pm Sweet Times with Carol Duncan OAM. Look for The 9pm Edict in your podcast app.

Elsewhere

• Following news two weeks ago that Open AI’s AI hacked another AI company, well, Anthropic’s AI has also been hacking other companies. Oh, and so has Meta’s. I’m sure all these people know what they’re doing.

• A new start-up called Atomarine has just received funding to build floating nuclear-powered AI datacentres at sea. Or so they say.

• Recently-published research has found no link between kids’ screen use and various problems: emotional, behavioural, or social. “The team says they found no links between screen use duration and developmental difficulties at age five or ten, and a link with increased difficulties at age 15 was only seen among teenagers who spent the most time video gaming, and not for other types of screen use.” You might like to check out the research paper.

• In the EU, the AI Act has introduced compulsory disclosure of AI-produced content in many contexts, particularly so-called deepfakes and AI-generated or manipulated text. “Evidently artistic, creative, satirical, fictional and analogous works” are exempt, however, so there will be some interesting legal cases coming soon. Such laws already exist in China.

• Denmark has an interesting approach to AI in schools. Students can use AI, but they’ll have to make an oral defence of their written essays. As the Guardian reports, “Upper secondary schools will also be required to use monitoring tools to oversee how computers are being used for written exams. They are required to install firewalls to filter what is available on the school network during exams and teaching”.

• From The Bulwark, how Iran blew up Trump’s Gulf AI deals. Literally.

• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has warned developers that some of the software libraries they use to insert advertising into their apps can betray users’ locations. “Location information sourced from the advertising industry has been used for ICE investigations, global spy tools, outing a gay priest, tracking union organisers, and tracking US military personnel,” they write.

• Car-maker BMW has been showing ads on in-car screens for the new movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

• “Boomers on Facebook are leaving comments that make it clear that they have no idea that AI-generated thirst traps aren’t real, reports Futurism.

• While we’re at Futurism, a partner at tech venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has boasted that the company’s new tech can fabricate fake history like in George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eight-Four”.

• A third one: The new AI service ChatTJB runs on “a proprietary biological reasoning substrate, delivering responses that are fully interpretable, non-synthetic, and accountable at the source”. Which is to say, this AI is “average individual” Tucker Bryant who “reads [your query], thinks about it, and writes back when awake and motivated”.

• “AI isn’t enough to protect social media communities from AI,” writes Ars Technica. Humans need to moderate humans.

• Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, has bet big on the AI boom. “Will be be the face of the AI bubble? asks the New York Times (gift link).

• Here’s a quick guide to disabling or avoiding intrusive AI in some commonly-used software. Don’t tell Larry.

Inquiries of note

• The ACCC has launched a inquiry into regional mobile coverage across Australia, which will include the possibility of making domestic mobile roaming mandatory — that is, allowing phones on one network to switch to other networks when reception isn’t available. They have yet to publish a discussion paper.

• The reporting deadline for the Senate inquiry into the Triple Zero service outage has been extended to 14 September.

What’s next?

Parliament returns from its long winter break this coming Tuesday 11 August.

The Senate draft legislation program includes debate on the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025.

The House of Reps program includes the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill and its close friend the National Self-exclusion Register (Cost Recovery Levy) Amendment, as well as the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill.

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