Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency. Preference will be give to letters of 100 words or less.
- Read the story: Proposed master plan sets out vision for airport development
Jenni Hesse, Pelican Waters: With the planned expansions, could I ask that if this airport is to be international it should have separate domestic and international areas and thus avoid the need for people seeing off or meeting people the annoyance of having to go through security with departing passengers. These passengers then have to go through security again before boarding their international flight. If I go to Brisbane Airport to see someone off or meet someone there is no security for anyone until such time as the passenger departs to go through customs and immigration. I am 84 and every time, without fail, I get frisked for explosives at Sunshine Coast Airport. Really? All I ask for is time for a quiet coffee before my friends and family depart without having to go through security.
- Read the story: Leash fine dispute leaves dog owner facing $3000 bill
Hugh Lloyd-Pryce: This is an absurd regulation with an absurd fine. It is an extremist local law. The trauma created by the council for this poor lady due to a draconian and flawed local law that requires ‘hand’ constraint by a person (and therefore excludes foot, pram, waist, arm etc) is a badly drafted piece of legislation that needs amending immediately. Perhaps passing laws relating to ‘killer’ scooters and bikes would be a more sensible use of their time and ratepayers’ money. What new stupid laws will the council invent, we have to ask?
Trisha Jacobsen, Buderim: Overboard fining. It was on the leash, restrained with its council tags and controlled. Cancel it. Move on.
- Read the story: Crash hotspots pinpointed amid police warning
Meredyth Sauer, Mapleton: One day recently I observed three speeding vehicles cross double lines on the Blackall Range to pass other vehicles that the drivers obviously considered were going too slowly. Speed is definitely a factor in many crashes but stupidity and lack of thought for other people or consequences of their own actions is another. Please slow down or leave earlier to arrive in good time so we can all reach our destinations safely. More visible police presence would help too.
- Read the story: Draft scheme sparks concerns and Council releases new draft planning scheme
Kay, Buddina: The council quoted oceans rising as one of the reasons to revamp Mooloolaba Beach. So please explain why Buddina has been chosen for extremely excessive high-rise? On the western side it has a river and linked canal; in the north is the river; and the oceans supposedly rising in the east. The sandhills were flattened in 1972-73. All drainage is linked to the river, so with excessive rain or high tides it is, at times, hard for the area to drain quick enough. Add to that the huge quantity of houses that are now built on the flood plains, and with a few days of heavy rain in the hinterland it creates a problem. I’m sure anyone can understand how fragile this area is. This area and residents need to be protected from such heavy development. This proposal needs to be stopped.
- Read the story: Fed-up resident calls for action on parked caravans and Rankled by roadside caravans
Mavis Irving, Pacific Paradise: If you can afford to have these vehicles, you must keep them on your own property, not on the streets, or pay for storage on land that takes these vehicles. It is so wrong to interfere with other neighbours’ lives by parking them on the streets.
Cheryl Thomas, Buderim: Near Mountain Creek Woolworths there are three motorhomes and one hire trailer. Every day a new vehicle staying. There will be an accident one due to no vision when getting out.
- Read the story: Olympic venues to skirt state laws
Robyn Deane, Nambour: While locally there are questions about the Planning Minister’s call-in of the festival site, in Brisbane there are growing concerns about the proposal to build an Olympic stadium in Victoria Park. The Yagara Magandjin Aboriginal Corporation has lodged an application with the federal government to prevent the development because it considers Victoria Park is one of the city’s most important First Nations sites. The Crisafulli government has given the Games Independent Infrastructure and Coordination Authority the power to disregard 15 planning laws such as the Local Government Act, the Planning Act, the Queensland Heritage Act, the Environmental Protection Act and the Nature Conservation Act. As another letter writer pointed out, there are “shades of pre-Fitzgerald Inquiry times” about this state government. The LNP has pushed through these changed laws “reprising the good ol’ days of rule by decree”.
- AI exposure
Garry Reynolds, Peregian Springs: The government’s roundtable has highlighted the benefits of using AI to increase productivity, but it can devalue and flatten humanity into datapoints while exposing intimate details about our private lives. The personal foibles of relying on AI were highlighted amusingly by a mate of mine who left a voicemail message for his daughter saying, “It’s just Dad – nothing urgent.” AI interpreted it into a text to her as “I’m just dead – nothing urgent!”
But AI can pose more serious risks. AI models can’t truly reason yet, and their ability to generate meaningful insights from live data is far from perfect. Worryingly, they can’t discriminate between fact and opinion, often presenting multiple opinions with equal value.
I am amazed how trusting users of AI have become in naively exposing their intimate personal details while experimenting with AI chatbot avatars. They have a blithe delusion that free, quick-fix AI shortcuts can solve their day-to-day emotional challenges, seduced by machine-learned fake compassion and care wording.
Lawyers are already warning users to be extremely careful about divulging their sensitive personal information. Digital quicksand awaits users of pseudo-empathetic programs that appear to respond in a human-like manner. These AI tools encourage a false sense of safety and a temptation to overshare. Extreme caution is required as anonymous AI tools have no regard for privacy. They are not subject to confidentiality laws as is a patient with their doctor, who is bound by a professional duty of care.
With AI, medical diagnoses, test results, workplace grievances or relationship advice can be shared more widely by deep-learning computer processes, becoming increasingly difficult to trace. Yet vulnerable people are being tempted to use AI ‘therapists’ for emotional support in times of loneliness and crisis to avoid the cost of confiding in human professionals. AI users are walking a tightrope because no one in the industry has figured out how to protect their privacy. The problem of AI exposure is multiplying owing to its ability to learn from new data to train future bots. This was highlighted when thousands of private ChatGPT results were accessed through a simple Google search. The yawning gaps are so scary that risk advisors believe conversations between a user and a chatbot could be used in lawsuits, as the data is stored and not going away.
Hopefully, national productivity gains don’t come at the cost of private lives being buried beneath an AI avalanche.
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency. Preference will be give to letters of 100 words or less.
