gaffe (noun)
1. A social or diplomatic blunder
The other day I noticed an article concerning a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly referring to AI (artificial intelligence) as “A-One” for an entire speech presented to the National Tech Summit. This might seem on the face of it to be a minor mistake but I believe this goes beyond a regrettable political “gaffe” as described.
I don’t believe I have previously written about AI here though I do have some opinions on it. Whatever your opinions on it, it is hard not to have heard at least something about it within the last year or two. It has already had a significant impact on the tech industry which has quickly spread to other industries both related and unrelated. Someone with the title of “Parliamentary Secretary for Jobs” or “Parliamentary Secretary for Job” as written on her website should certainly know something about it. I don’t work in the tech industry but I certainly know what it is and it has already affected my work.
It has also made a number of jobs all but obsolete overnight. If someone made a living translating simple documents from one language to another: they have likely lost a lot of work. Where certified or more complicated translations are required, a human is still needed but perhaps not forever. Likewise, people who have jobs requiring them to perform simple coding tasks or draft letters are also up for the chop as AI is more than capable of replacing them. These are just a few examples but there are more even if you don’t get into the more fantastical projections of tech fetishists.
It should be clear that a politician with “Jobs” in her ministerial portfolio like Bronwyn Halfpenny should have known exactly what AI was. Even from the more cynical perspective, she should have at least run through the text aloud in front of whoever wrote it, before going out and giving the speech. As a quick aside, it would be delightful if we later learn the speech was written by an AI language model based on prompts from one of her lazy staffers.
As of writing, the damage to her reputation seems to be limited and it didn’t get much media coverage. When I searched for more, I only found a few hits and at least two looked to be the same article posted to affiliate websites. The ABC didn’t cover it and her short entry on Wikipedia is currently untarnished.
I became a little curious about “Ms.” Halfpenny (at least to the level of Wikipedia), and found she is the daughter of one John Halfpenny. According to his Wikipedia, he was a Communist and lifetime Trade Unionist though it does seem he had a real job for a few years of his life as a metal worker. Just in case the article is subsequently changed, I will quote the short entry below with the important parts bolded:
Halfpenny was born in Donald in Victoria and joined the Communist Party, travelling to Moscow in 1960 as head of the Eureka Youth League. A metal worker, he became an organiser for the Amalgamated Engineering Union in 1969 and was elected its secretary in 1970. In 1972, he became state secretary of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union. Halfpenny resigned from the Communist Party in 1979 and joined the Australian Labor Party in 1982, running unsuccessfully for the Senate in 1987. He was secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC) from 1987 to 1995 and also served as an executive of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
In 1995 he was awarded the Rostrum Victoria Award of Merit, an award for prominent Victorians who have earned a reputation for excellence in the art of public speaking over a considerable period and demonstrated an effective contribution to the spoken word through the spoken word. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours of 26 January 1998. In December 1998, he was fined $4,000, but not convicted, for falsely claiming $26,000 in compensation while employed by the VTHC. In February 2000 he came to public attention again when he sought damages for an ankle injury he had sustained on his way to work 46 years earlier, in 1954.
At a glance, I would say that the person who wrote this, did not think much of Mr. Halfpenny but nobody has changed it and the “Talk” page is without any talk. I expect some further research would establish that most of the above is true. And everything here suggests that Bronwyn Halfpenny is a Red diaper baby whose father joined the Labor Party when it became expedient to do so.
Her paternal connections no doubt helped her win preselection for the extremely safe Labor seat of Thomastown which she has held since 2010. I find it hard to imagine how low a Labor politician would have to sink to lose such a seat and even then, it would only be to a left-wing independent or Greens party candidate.
With this background, it is much easier to make sense of all this. She has spent her whole life in trade unionism and by extension Labor politics. She has certainly had to do work but seldom anything productive. Why should she care what AI is or how it might affect people who do work for a living? Her ministerial portfolio is just one more lucrative rung up the ladder and not something she would be genuinely concerned with. I may be wrong but her little “gaffe” supports my assumption.
Archive of the Daily Mail article.
Archive of her ‘About Bronwyn’ page.