Author: MIL-OSI Publisher

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Wenjia Tang, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Digital Communication, University of Sydney

What can you do in 60 seconds? In short dramas, or “micro dramas”, that’s enough time for a billionaire CEO to fall in love with his contracted wife, or for a werewolf mafia boss to break a curse.

These vertically framed, minute-long serials are reshaping the way we consume screen entertainment.

ReelShort, NetShort and DramaBox are currently the leading short drama platforms. DramaBox has been downloaded more than 100 million times on Google Play, while ReelShort was ranked second on Apple’s top free entertainment apps at the time of writing, ahead of Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video and Disney+.

Short dramas originated in China in the early 2020s through short video platforms such as Douyin (TikTok’s sister app) and Kuaishou (also known as Kwai).

The format has since expanded globally through both Chinese platforms and social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram. It reflects a growing trend in smartphone entertainment towards shorter, scrollable content.

Our new research, which involved interviewing 12 people in the short drama industry, shows it is creating much-needed job opportunities. At the same time, this industry is expanding faster than regulation can catch up – and that spells trouble.

Cliffhangers and outrageous storytelling

Short dramas are optimised for fragmented viewing via smartphones. The format blends TikTok’s fast-paced plotting style with recognisable screen genres. Think: a cheesy lifetime flick delivered in one-minute bursts. Most series have between 50 and 100 episodes.

Their appeal lies in dramatic storylines and cliffhangers. Each episode ends with a twist, designed to keep you hooked. This might be the revelation of a mysterious identity, or a tangled misunderstanding that is bound to lead to conflict. As ReelShort puts it: “every second is a drama”.

Let’s look at the hit series Playing by the Billionaire’s Rules as an example. Over 89 episodes, the series features a contract lover, million-dollar debts, an accidental pregnancy and a secret love triangle.

While it falls short of Hollywood standards of plot, dialogue and acting, it captures viewers’ attention through a conflict-ridden plot and provocative (sometimes amateurish) performances.

Playing by the Billionaire’s Rules is one of thousands of such series available online. In most cases, the first five to ten episodes are free, after which viewers must pay (usually right when the story is at its most thrilling).

A low-cost format, ripe for expansion

Despite illogical storytelling, crude production and exaggerated, stereotypical characters, short dramas are proving to be highly lucrative. In one 2023 article, The Economist described this “latest Chinese export to conquer America” as a hybrid of TikTok and Netflix.

Their popularity can also be linked to the COVID pandemic and the Hollywood writers’ strike, both of which slowed down the global screen industry.

Our research shows short drama production teams, which are mostly led by Chinese producers, have now expanded globally to the United States, Australia, eastern Europe and other parts of Asia, in search of new collaborative opportunities.

Los Angeles is emerging as the fastest-growing production hub. According to one LA Times article, short drama apps outside of China made US$1.2 billion (about A$1.8 billion) last year. Some 60% of this revenue came from the US.

Companies the world over are cashing in on the opportunity. Spanish-language media company TelevisaUnivision has started investing in the format, as has Ukrainian startup Holywater, which is using AI to generate almost fully synthetic short dramas.

Even the Hollywood giant Lionsgate has taken notice of short dramas, and is exploring their commercial potential.

It’s also possible short dramas will open the door for new players in the streaming wars. Although Netflix isn’t currently producing short dramas, it has started experimenting with the vertical short format (in the form of series and movie clips) on its mobile app.

Short dramas are also easily replicated across countries and various market conditions, and allow for localised content strategies. For example, the short drama Breaking the Ice reboots the Chinese campus romance template into a story centred on hockey players, making it more relatable for North American audiences.

Fantasy templates, such as those featuring werewolves, vampires, and witches, have also proven universally successful – and are often used by Chinese producers as low-risk, easily localised genres to test new markets.

Concerns behind the scenes

Our research finds the short drama industry is seen as a promising avenue for creating job opportunities, and for allowing actors and creators to get significant exposure on a modest budget.

But we’ve also found the industry to be far less regulated than more established screen industries.

There are growing concerns in the industry around labour exploitation and copyright infringement, as well as uncertainty over how sustainable the model will be in the long run.

One of our interviewees, a producer based in Los Angeles, revealed several concerning practices including problems with overtime work, stealing and recycling of drama scripts, underpayment of film school graduates, and a prevalence of unfair contracts for screenwriters.

The screenwriters we interviewed told us they hadn’t received proper credit for their work, and were bound by “buyout contracts” that excluded them from receiving additional compensation – even if their scripts garnered millions of views.

Earlier this year, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance and Casting Guild of Australia issued a joint statement urging local actors to verify the credentials of any “vertical series” production teams before signing contracts with them.

Still, the short drama format continues to draw significant attention from across the screen industry. More than just a passing content trend, this may be the beginning of a structural shift in what “television” means: low-cost, easily replicated and recklessly fast-paced.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Werewolf exes and billionaire CEOs: why cheesy short dramas are taking over our social media feeds – https://theconversation.com/werewolf-exes-and-billionaire-ceos-why-cheesy-short-dramas-are-taking-over-our-social-media-feeds-259385

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor of History and Associate Head (Research) of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University

Omar El Akkad does not want you to look away. An award-winning journalist and novelist, El Akkad was born in Egypt, lived as a teenager in Qatar and Canada, and migrated as an adult to the US, where he now lives with his family in the Pacific Northwest.

His essay collection, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, draws on his life, from childhood to new fatherhood. He combines these reflections with a sharp grasp of modern history to examine responses in the west to “the world’s first livestreamed genocide” in Gaza.

Finding that response wanting, he urges readers to watch, listen, reflect and act.

---

Review: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – Omar El Akkad (Text Publishing)

---

As someone whose parents migrated to the west for the freedoms and opportunities it would afford their children, El Akkad has an acute sense of the past events, ideas and structures that have shaped the present. He pays keen attention to the legacies of colonial rule.

Witnessing history

El Akkad’s descriptions of atrocity are not easy to read. Nor is his blunt demand to do something. Yet the force of his observations and the bite of his prose make it hard to turn away.

His purpose is akin to many famed witnesses in history. Contemporaneous statements about violence often serve later as testimony in determining what happened, who was responsible, and what recompense is due.

Think of George Orwell on propaganda in Spain. Or British journalists Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge exposing famine in 1930s USSR, while other western communists looked away. Or Victor Klemperer’s diaries, published after the war, which tracked how the Nazis twisted everyday speech.

Above all, this kind of testimony guards against future claims of innocence, against the reassuring assertion that “they didn’t know what was going on” or “they were of their time”.

Less well-known to Australian readers may be American journalist Ida B. Wells, but El Akkad’s fire and fury also brought her to mind. In the 1890s, Wells fiercely attacked lynching in her own newspaper, the Memphis Free Speech. She investigated specific instances of ritualised mob violence.

Wells also catalogued how news outlets told those stories. They minced words to protect the perpetrators, while smearing the reputations of the dead, who were always named.

El Akkad also pays close attention the way the violence in Gaza is framed and described. He observes how reporters use the passive voice, which not only hides the names of killers but implies mass death came about by accident or magic. “Palestinian Journalist Hit in Head by Bullet During Raid on Terror Suspect’s Home,” read one Guardian headline, he notes.

Both Wells and El Akkad show how victims of racist and colonial violence are cast as already guilty. With lynching, the pretext was often an accusation of rape, though that was rarely the actual spark. Far more common were disputes between men over land, pay, labour organising, business competition or voting drives.

In the case of Gaza, the media mimics the claims of Israeli politicians, its military and allies of both. They all cast civilians as terrorists or terrorists-in-waiting, even children. The words clean the consciences of onlookers. They launder harm as if it were cash.

Modes of resisting

As the book’s title, which began life as a viral tweet, goes: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

Bearing witness to the atrocities and the gutless responses, El Akkad reminds liberal readers that if Gaza had happened in the past, they would condemn the violence. What’s more, they would imagine that, had they been alive at the time, they would have firmly resisted the wrong or even taken a heroic stance against it.

One blistering passage will hit very close to home for Australian readers:

I read an op-ed in which a writer argues that the model for Palestinian-Israeli coexistence is something like Canada’s present-day relationship with the Indigenous population, and I marvel at the casual, obvious, but unstated corollary: that there is an Indigenous population being colonized, but that we should let this unpleasantness run its course so we can arrive at true justice in the form of land acknowledgments at every Tel Aviv poetry reading.

As well as diagnosing the problem, El Akkad surveys and evaluates modes of resisting what is happening in Gaza. He discards as ineffective the old appeal to westerners’ self-interest. Pointing out that horrors they permit elsewhere will eventually come for them just doesn’t work.

His essays were written between the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and August 2024, when the US presidential campaign was in full swing. Much of his energy goes to addressing the “lesser of two evils” debate about voting in a democracy where the options are far right and, at most, centre-a-bit-left. Only from a relatively protected position, he observes, could one vote for the Democratic Party on the grounds that the other side “would be so much worse”.

Making this case, El Akkad says, rests on a quiet assent to mass death. He calls this a “reticent acceptance of genocide” and asks liberals in the United States (and by implication in other western democracies) to examine their consciences.

The remedying action El Akkad proposes is widespread negation, or “walking away”. People, en masse, must refuse to accept that the meagre promises of the less conservative political parties are the best options on offer.

This will require sacrifices. El Akkad provides examples of people he admires: the writer who refused a prize from an organisation that had been silent about Gaza; the teacher brave enough to talk with teenage students about the intolerable rate of children and civilians (not “noncombatants”) dying. Most starkly, he writes of Aaron Bushnell, the US Air Force veteran, whose last words before setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. were “free Palestine”.

Systematic violence

Like Wells, El Akkad links systematic violence to the structures that underpin the modern world. Chief among them is capitalism. Real change, he suggests, will come when enough of us, to use the old 1960s parlance, “drop out”, though he prefers “negation”, a word that that implies there is something to defy.

It is time, he argues, for a well-educated western citizenry to say “enough”. Our phones are smart enough; we are (collectively) rich and sated enough.

It might be hard at first, but we will learn that “maybe it’s not all that much trouble to avoid ordering coffee and downloading apps and buying chocolate-flavored hummus from companies that abide slaughter”.

Doing so might just halt a genocide. In time, this kind of collective action might also stop other looming calamities, not least climate collapse. El Akkad’s steady focus throughout the book on the death, maiming and immeasurable psychic injury to the children of Gaza makes that case feel urgent.

If that sounds hyperbolic, El Akkad might ask what children you had in mind when you flinched from his diagnosis and prognosis. Your answer likely turns on the location, colour and wealth of the children you have in mind. Children in Tuvalu, for example, know he is not exaggerating.

In one of the book’s most arresting lines, El Akkad asks: “How does one finish the sentence: ‘It is unfortunate that tens of thousands of children are dead, but …’”

Better, he suggests, that we all behave in a way whose ethics is grounded in the claim: “there’s no such thing as someone else’s children.”

---

Omar El Akkad will be appearing at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne, on October 22, 2025

Clare Corbould does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘There’s no such thing as someone else’s children’ – Omar El Akkad bears witness to the destruction of Gaza and the West’s quiet assent – https://theconversation.com/theres-no-such-thing-as-someone-elses-children-omar-el-akkad-bears-witness-to-the-destruction-of-gaza-and-the-wests-quiet-assent-251615

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Mollie J. Cohen, Associate Professor of Political Science, Purdue University

For the first time since the country’s return to democracy in 1982, Bolivia’s presidential election will go to a runoff after no candidate secured the required absolute majority in the first-round vote on Aug. 17, 2025.

The choice Bolivians now face means that the country is set to elect a non-left-wing candidate for the first time in a generation. In October, they will choose between the center-right Sen. Rodrigo Paz Pereira, who led the first round with approximately 32% of the valid vote, and former right-wing interim President Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who had close to 27%.

As many predicted, the left lost spectacularly, with the best-performing leftist candidate, Andrónico Rodríguez, winning only around 8% of the valid vote.

In fact, the left performed so poorly that its vote count was surpassed by invalid ballots. More than 19% of all ballots were spoiled and an additional 2.5% left blank. Indeed, the invalid vote roughly quadrupled compared to presidential elections between 2006 and 2020, when only about 5% of ballots were invalid.

Invalid votes are those that have been left unmarked – “blank” votes – or mismarked – “null” or “spoiled” votes – so that a voter’s intent is unclear. They are usually counted but excluded from official electoral math. But as I document in my 2024 book, “None of the Above,” blank and spoiled votes are also one of the most widely used tools of protest in Latin American democracies. Every year, millions of voters use the tactic to express their frustration with the candidates on the ballot, while at the same time demonstrating their commitment to democracy and elections.

In the case of Bolivia, I believe the rise in invalid votes is both a symptom of widespread dissatisfaction with the political and economic status quo and a signal of persistent, but not overwhelming, support for the divisive former president, Evo Morales.

Political and economic crisis

Bolivia’s presidential election took place as the country experiences dual economic and political crises. Like many of its neighbors, Bolivia experienced a commodity-driven economic boom at the beginning of the 21st century, fueled in this case by the export of lithium and natural gas. However, boom turned to bust in the 2010s as global commodity prices plunged. With its currency pegged to the U.S. dollar and a heavy reliance on gas exports, Bolivia’s economy suffered.

The country’s economic situation remains fraught. The national debt has ballooned to 95% of the size of its GDP in 2024. Meanwhile there are widespread fuel shortages; a decline in international currency reserves, meaning a likely further devaluation of the national currency; and a rising annual inflation rate that in July reached 24%.

Presidential candidates across the political spectrum promised economic austerity measures, like ending popular fuel subsidies.

This rightward shift also reflects growing divides among Bolivia’s political left, centered around Morales, a former labor leader and the first Indigenous president in a country where about half of the population is of native, non-European descent.

Morales’ 2006 victory was hailed at the time as a victory for Bolivian democracy. His government dramatically reduced the poverty rate, and expanded Bolivia’s middle class. However, critics contended that Morales also degraded democracy by, for example, stacking the courts and ignoring term limits. Morales’ time in office ended with allegations of fraud during the 2019 election, which he steadfastly denied. He fled the country soon after, returning in 2020 when his then-political ally and one-time protege Luis Arce assumed the presidency.

After seeing his popularity plummet during his term, Arce opted not to run this time around. Meanwhile, the coutry’s constitutional court, citing term limits, barred Morales from running for a fourth term as president. However, he continues to be a force in Bolivian politics. Recently, infighting between Morales, Arce and left-wing presidential candidates contributed to the inability to pass legislation meant to fix the current economic crisis.

These intraparty fights split the Bolivian left, leaving Morales supporters without a viable candidate.

Shut out, Morales campaigns for a null vote

In late July, the former president began actively campaigning for the invalid vote.

Campaigns promoting the blank or spoiled vote in presidential elections are not uncommon, with similar movements occurring in more than 30% of Latin American presidential elections during the 2010s. Indeed, nearly every country in the region has experienced at least one invalid vote campaign during a presidential election since 1980.

And as I found in the course of my research, most null vote campaigns self-consciously promote democratic values. Campaigners protest the persistent underperformance of democratic politics, ongoing corruption by high-ranking politicians or blatant efforts to rig elections.

Bolivia’s 2025 invalid vote campaign in some ways echoes those previous efforts. In Morales’ telling, Bolivia’s term limits curtailed his fundamental right to run for office and his supporters’ right to select their preferred candidate. Widespread ballot spoiling would be a way to send a strong message to those currently in power to allow Morales to run.

But Morales’ campaign also faced challenges that often undo invalid vote campaigns. Such campaigns are generally unpopular with the public, and are even less popular when they are led by politicians who would benefit personally from an increase in the invalid vote. Morales was just such a candidate. Increased invalid vote rates would show his ability to sway the public and increase his political influence, something he appeared to acknowledge when declaring at a recent rally that he would have “won the elections” if the null vote reached 25%.

In this way, Morales is different from most null vote campaigners. He has been the central figure in Bolivian politics for nearly 20 years. He has a track record of both strong economic performance and of undermining Bolivian democracy and the rule of law. It is a testament to his popularity and influence that nearly 1 in 5 Bolivians spoiled their ballots.

The health of Bolivian democracy

Still, it would be a mistake to conclude that the increase in spoiled ballots signals overwhelming support for Morales, as he contends. Pre-election polling showed that Bolivians intended to cast invalid votes at a higher rate well before Morales began his campaign. Rather, Morales’s campaign likely harnessed existing anti-candidate sentiment, while leaching support from left-wing alternatives.

Additionally, while the spoiled vote rate was quite high, Morales did not achieve his goals: The null vote did not “beat” the runoff candidates, nor did it reach 25% of the vote. While Morales has staked a strong claim that the Bolivian public “voted but did not choose,” this argument is belied by the results: Most Bolivians did select a candidate, and a majority of them voted for a candidate from the political right. By that metric, Morales does not retain majoritarian support in Bolivia.

But neither should the relatively high number of invalid ballots be ignored. Over 1 million Bolivians used their ballots to send a message to politicians. Those leaders now have an opportunity to respond by working to restore trust with these voters.

Whoever wins the runoff in October 2025, Bolivian society will likely continue to be plagued by the social, political and economic divisions that have been present for years.

Indeed, the high rate of spoiled votes suggests that citizens are dissatisfied with their democratic choices. And those charged with protecting Bolivia’s democracy might well be advised to heed this signal.

Mollie J. Cohen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 1 in 5 Bolivians spoiled their ballots – a sign of voter dissatisfaction as nation tips to the right – https://theconversation.com/1-in-5-bolivians-spoiled-their-ballots-a-sign-of-voter-dissatisfaction-as-nation-tips-to-the-right-263166

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Samuel Cornell, PhD Candidate in Public Health & Community Medicine, School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney

Videos promoting #testosteronemaxxing are racking up millions of views. Like “looksmaxxing” or “fibremaxxing” this trend takes something related to body image (improving your looks) or health (eating a lot of fibre) and pushes it to extreme levels.

Testosterone or “T” maxxing encourages young men – mostly teenage boys – to increase their testosterone levels, either naturally (for example, through diet) or by taking synthetic hormones.

Podcasters popular among young men, such as Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman, enthusiastically promote it as a way to fight ageing, enhance performance or build strength.

However, taking testosterone when there’s no medical need has serious health risks. And the trend plays into the insecurities of young men and developing boys who want to be considered masculine and strong. This can leave them vulnerable to exploitation – and seriously affect their health.

---

Read more:
Get big or die trying: social media is driving men’s use of steroids. Here’s how to mitigate the risks

---

What is testosterone?

We all produce the sex hormone testosterone, but levels are naturally much higher in males. It’s produced mainly in the testes, and in much smaller amounts in the ovaries and adrenal glands.

Testosterone’s effects on the body are wide ranging, including helping you grow and repair muscle and bone, produce red blood cells and stabilise mood and libido.

During male puberty, testosterone production increases 30-fold and drives changes such as a deeper voice, developing facial hair and increasing muscle mass and sperm production.

It’s normal for testosterone levels to change across your lifetime, and even to fluctuate daily (usually at their highest in the morning).

Lifestyle factors such as diet, sleep and stress can also affect how much testosterone you produce.

Natural testosterone levels generally peak in early adulthood, around the mid-twenties. They then start to progressively decline with age.

A doctor can check hormone levels with a blood test. For males, healthy testosterone levels usually range between about 450 and 600 ng/dL (nanograms per decilitre of blood serum). Low testosterone is generally below 300 ng/dL.

Diagnosing low testosterone

In Australia, taking testosterone is only legal with a doctor’s prescription and ongoing supervision. The only way to diagnose low testosterone is via a blood test.

Testosterone may be prescribed to men diagnosed with hypogonadism, meaning the testes don’t produce enough testosterone.

This condition can lead to:

• reduced muscle mass
• increased body fat
• lower bone density (increasing the risk of fracture)
• low libido
• erectile dysfunction
• fatigue
• depression
• anaemia
• difficulty concentrating.

Hypogonadism has even been linked to early death in men.

A manufactured panic about ‘low T’

Hypogonadism affects around one in 200 men, although estimates vary. It is more common among older men and those with diabetes or obesity.

Yet on social media, “low T” is being framed as an epidemic among young men. Influencers warn them to look for signs, such as not developing muscle mass or strength as quickly as hoped – or simply not looking “masculine”.

Extreme self-improvement and optimisation trends spread like wildfire online. They tap into common anxieties about masculinity, status and popularity.

Conflating “manliness” with testosterone levels and a muscular physical appearance exploits an insecurity ripe for marketing.

This has fuelled a market surge for “solutions” including private clinics offering “testosterone optimisation” packages, supplements claiming to increase testosterone levels and influencers on social media promoting extreme exercise and diet programs.

There is evidence some people are undergoing testosterone replacement therapy, even when they don’t have clinically low levels of testosterone.

What are the risks of testosterone replacement?

Taking testosterone as a medication can suppress the body’s own production, by shutting down the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, which controls testosterone and sperm production.

While testosterone production can recover after you stop taking testosterone, this can be slow and is not guaranteed, particularly after long-term or unsupervised use. This means some men may feel a significant difference when they stop taking testosterone.

Testosterone therapy can also lead to side effects for some people, including acne and skin conditions, balding, reduced fertility and a high red blood cell count. It can also interact with some medications.

So there are added risks from using testosterone without a prescription and appropriate supervision.

On the black market, testosterone is sold in gyms, or online via encrypted messaging apps. These products can be contaminated, counterfeit or incorrectly dosed.

People taking these drugs without medical supervision face potential infection, organ damage, or even death, since contaminated or counterfeit products have been linked to toxic metal poisoning, heart attacks, strokes and fatal organ failure.

Harm reduction is key

T maxxing offers young men an enticing image: raise your testosterone, be more manly.

But for healthy young men without hypogonadism, the best ways to regulate hormones and development are healthy lifestyle choices. This includes sleeping and eating well and staying active.

To fight misinformation and empower men to make informed choices, we need to meet them where they are. This means recognising their drive for self-improvement without judgement while helping them understand the real risks of non-medical hormone use.

We also need to acknowledge that young men chasing T maxxing often mask deeper issues, such as body image anxiety, social pressure or mental health issues.

Young men often delay seeking help until they have a medical emergency.

If you’re worried about your testosterone levels, speak to your doctor.

Samuel Cornell receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

Timothy Piatkowski receives funding from Queensland Mental Health Commission. He is affiliated with Queensland Injectors Voice for Advocacy and Action and The Loop Australia.

Luke Cox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why are young men ‘T maxxing’ testosterone? Do they need it? And what are the risks? – https://theconversation.com/why-are-young-men-t-maxxing-testosterone-do-they-need-it-and-what-are-the-risks-263203

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Celeste Rodriguez Louro, Associate Professor, Chair of Linguistics and Director of Language Lab, The University of Western Australia

Last year I attended a panel on generative AI in education. In a memorable moment, one presenter asked: “What’s the big deal? Generative AI is like a calculator. It’s just a tool.”

The analogy is an increasingly common one. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman himself has referred to ChatGPT as “a calculator for words” and compared comments on the new technology to reactions to the arrival of the calculator.

People said, ‘We’ve got to ban these because people will just cheat on their homework. If people don’t need to calculate a sine function by hand again […] then mathematical education is over.’

However, generative AI systems are not calculators. Treating them like calculators obscures what they are, what they do, and whom they serve. This easy analogy simplifies a controversial technology and ignores five crucial differences from technologies of the past.

1. Calculators do not hallucinate or persuade

Calculators compute functions from clearly defined inputs. You punch in 888 ÷ 8 and get one correct answer: 111.

This output is bounded and unchangeable. Calculators do not infer, guess, hallucinate or persuade.

They do not add add fake or unwanted elements to the answer. They do not fabricate legal cases or tell people to “please die”.

2. Calculators do not pose fundamental ethical dilemmas

Calculators don’t raise fundamental ethical dilemmas.

Making ChatGPT involved workers in Kenya sifting through irreversibly traumatising content for a dollar or two an hour, for example. Calculators didn’t need that.

After the financial crisis in Venezuela, an AI data-labelling company saw an opportunity to snap up cheap labour with exploitative employment models. Calculators didn’t need that, either.

Calculators didn’t require vast new power plants to be built, or compete with humans for water as AI data centres are doing in some of the driest parts of the world.

Calculators didn’t need new infrastructure to be built. The calculator industry didn’t see a huge mining push such as the one currently driving rapacious copper and lithium extraction as in the lands of the Atacameños in Chile.

3. Calculators do not undermine autonomy

Calculators did not have the potential to become an “autocomplete for life”. They never offered to make every decision for you, from what to eat and where to travel to when to kiss your date.

Calculators did not challenge our ability to think critically. Generative AI, however, has been shown to erode independent reasoning and increase “cognitive offloading”. Over time, reliance on these systems risks placing the power to make everyday decisions in the hands of opaque corporate systems.

4. Calculators do not have social and linguistic bias

Calculators do not reproduce the hierarchies of human language and culture. Generative AI, however, is trained on data that reflects centuries of unequal power relations, and its outputs mirror those inequities.

Language models inherit and reinforce the prestige of dominant linguistic forms, while sidelining or erasing less privileged ones.

Tools such as ChatGPT handle mainstream English, but routinely reword, mislabel, or erase other world Englishes.

While projects exist that attempt to tackle the exclusion of minoritised voices from technological development, generative AI’s bias for mainstream English is worryingly pronounced.

5. Calculators are not ‘everything machines’

Unlike calculators, language models don’t operate within a narrow domain such as mathematics. Instead they have the potential to entangle themselves in everything: perception, cognition, affect and interaction.

Language models can be “agents”, “companions”, “influencers”, “therapists”, and “boyfriends”. This is a key difference between generative AI and calculators.

While calculators help with arithmetic, generative AI may engage in both transactional and interactional functions. In one sitting, a chatbot can help you edit your novel, write up code for a new app, and provide a detailed psychological profile of someone you think you like.

Staying critical

The calculator analogy makes language models and so-called “copilots”, “tutors”, and “agents” sound harmless. It gives permission for uncritical adoption and suggests technology can fix all the challenges we face as a society.

It also perfectly suits the platforms that make and distribute generative AI systems. A neutral tool needs no accountability, no audits, no shared governance.

But as we have seen, generative AI is not like a calculator. It does not simply crunch numbers or produce bounded outputs.

Understanding what generative AI is really like requires rigorous critical thinking. The kind that equips us to confront the consequences of “moving fast and breaking things”. The kind that can help us decide whether the breakage is worth the cost.

Celeste Rodriguez Louro receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Google.

– ref. Generative AI is not a ‘calculator for words’. 5 reasons why this idea is misleading – https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-is-not-a-calculator-for-words-5-reasons-why-this-idea-is-misleading-263323