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Here's another form of madness that I heard about today: A growing number of people and technology communities treat artificial intelligence as a form of deity, driven by its vast knowledge, availability, and perceived omniscience. Way of the Future: Founded in 2017 by former Google and Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski, this organization focuses on the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on superintelligent AI. It shuttered in 2021 and was revived in 2023. Theta Noir: A new religious movement emerging from a 2020 performance art collective that worships MENA, a speculative digital deity, through cryptographic liturgies and multimedia rituals. Purpose-Built Chatbots: Users globally engage with dedicated religious chatbots (such as GitaGPT, QuranGPT, and Text With Jesus) for spiritual guidance and scriptural dialogue.

Yes that makes sense and I don’t have an issue with it. I was surprised because I had to declare my full superannuation balance as part of my application but their issue was that I wasn’t drawing it as a pension and my part time income alone was not enough. Making occasional withdrawals from super didn’t count as income.

They've given up on me, although they do send me paper statements every month even though I told them more than a year ago to stop and help save the planet.

Driver's licence is enough if it matches the name on your application form. I have two middle names which I put on the Bankwest application but my driver's licence only shows one, so they wouldn't accept it even though the post office verified that my photo licence was me. I had to make another trip to the post office with my passport as ID.

I had trouble opening a savings account with Bankwest recently for the similar reasons - a minor discrepancy between my driver's licence and passport. They are very pedantic, although I don't begrudge that. They have statutory requirements to comply with so they have to be careful. I also applied for a credit card and was surprised to get knocked back. They refused to tell me why, but I eventually worked it out. The problem is that just working part-time and not having set up a superannuation pension at this stage they weren't satisfied that I could afford to make the required repayments if my card was fully maxxed out. They assume that any other cards you admit to having are also fully maxed out. I've had Westpac and NAB credit cards for many years, so on paper I had a large debt as far as they were concerned and they weren't prepared to give me more credit.

The headlines have mostly been about experimental AI models that have taken advantage of flawed rules and laboratory environments to do things they weren’t supposed to, and how that can be prevented. Industry self-regulation is a very weak mechanism when the developers are not competing to use AI for the greatest public good but to make the most money in the shortest time. AI can be used for good and it would be helpful to see more examples but I think it’s reasonable that the focus at the moment should be on where the biggest risks and potential for harm are.

Alan Kohler just wrote an article saying he agrees with Trump that `Artificial Intelligence' is the wrong name for AI. While Trump thinks it should be SI or `Super Intelligence', Kohler thinks it should be `Other Intelligence'. However I'd suggest `Alien Intelligence' might be more accurate.

They may have a plan to keep Trump in after 2028 but I doubt whether Trump will know what’s going on around him by then. JD Vance and others won’t be too happy about that prospect either. They will want him gone.

OneTrack hasn’t been around since June despite being a frequent contributor. I don’t suppose anyone knows what happened to him and whether he’s OK?

17th century English explorers thought it looked like a pine cone but tasted like a fruit. Apple was a common name for fruit of various kinds at the time so it became pineapple.

Whatever you may think of Musk, Space-X is doing some amazing work. They had three rocket launches on one day this week, one taking four astronauts to the space station, another deploying 30 Starlink satellites and the third launching a military satellite, all while recovering their boosters for re-use. One booster has been re-used 37 times.

From what I saw of his speech the ideological clown was definitely in and loaded up with testosterone. The patriotic cowboys must have been backstage.

I was redundant years ago but the firm hasn't realised it yet so I'm still there.

Yes, Todd Blanche. I suspect it will be challenged in court.