Burning Platforms

Burning Platform is back from its brief hiatus for a special live Virtual Town Hall, convened on July 6th, looking at the growing fight to resist the US tech behemoth, in partnership with Digital Rights Watch and GetUp! Hosted by Per Capita's Peter Lewis, with speakers: * DRW chair Lizzie O'Shea * GetUp! campaigner Hayden Rodgers * Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge   Show notes available...

This week on Burning Platforms, we're joined by the head of the Local and Independent News Association, Clare Stutchbery, to get her insights on the importance of media diversity in an age of information hierarchies.   Panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Australian Writers Guild CEO Claire Pullin and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also explore:   Why has Trump blocked Anthropic’s latest...

The political strategist and author of ‘Angertainement', Ed Coper, joins the Burning Platform this week to discuss how social media outrage ruined everything and outlines his blueprint for harnessing the toxic information ecosystem.   Panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:  is Anthropic really calling to hit...

This week on Burning Platforms we dive deep into Pope Leo’s XIV’s  encyclical with Dr Michael Walker from the Justice and Peace Office at the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney .   Our panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, ABC AI reporter Cam Wilson and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into: AI’s Trust Deficit  Amnesty International’s new report: Unlawful by Design and Greenpeace’s n...

The founder of start-up Noizend on the challenges of scaling tech in Australia and how the real innovation is not running on the back of LLMs.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:  Why is Meta ditching End to End Encryption? Will Google’s new IO break the internet? And Elon Musk’s the SpaceX float...

Internet academic Tama Leaver on the lines between regulating and equipping children to navigate the  AI revolution.   Panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, ABC AI reporter Cam Wilson and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:    Students Jeer AI Inspiration  Palantir’s Surveillance Playbook and can we build an AI Wealth Fund?    For background notes on these discussions go to Bu...

The Australian Writer’s Guild CEO Claire Pullen updates us on the fight to protect Australian creators from the industrial-scale thrift of their work.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:    The wild west of AI-powered toys  Chat-GPT’s new bot-phone and how Anthropic is tapping religious leaders f...

The Privacy Commissioner takes us through the new code to to give children greater control over their data and how this could open the door for less surveillance for all of us.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:    What’s behind the cancellation of RightsCon?  Why did Jack Dorsey lay off 40 per...

The Labor MP and former Industry Minister on how the power of the global tech giants and why tech sovereignty is non-negotiable.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:    Who is enabling the Nudify apps? Is there a world beyond the US AI stack? And what on earth is Palintir CEO Alex Karp smoking?  ...

The Sizzle editor (and freshly minted ABC AI reporter) joins us to make sense of the spate of attacks on CEO leaders. Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:  What role should AI play in Aged Care? Is all the AI Bubble talk just hot air? And how to get into a slinging match with a chat bot? For backgro...

On this week's Burning Platforms, Australia’s leading AI scientist, Prof Toby Walsh, takes us through the failing efforts to place limits around the automation of military conflict. Regular panelists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also discuss: Sam Altman’s moments of truth Anthropic’s Maven’s Vuln-pocalypse and the AI Bubble's...

The ACTU’s Assistant Secretary takes us through the multiple challenges AI poses workers and the pressure points where unions are pushing back.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:  Anthropic’s pitch to Canberra slop-aganda in the Iranian war and a new platform to Surf the fedi-verse   For backgro...

The founder of Teach Us Consent on her campaign to give young people control over their social media feeds.    Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea,  Per Capita’s Peter Lewis and Cam Wilson from The Sizzle also delve into:  The release of a new privacy code for children Anthropic’s push into Australia and Bernie Sanders' new bill for a moratorium on data centres   For backgr...

The Host of the  ‘Computer Says Maybe’ podcast joins us to give a global take on the power and influence of Big Tech.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also delve into:    the federal government’s green data centre edict industry’s latest pitch to mine creative data and Open AI’s pivot away from consumer produc...

  The Director of QUT’S Digital Media Research Centre outlines how different chatbots take users down different wormholes when they research conspiracy theories.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea and The Sizzle’s Cam Wilson also dig into: How AI is creating new modes of death and destruction in Iran Why Pornhub is pulling out of Australia and Atlassian’s ironic jobs pur...

The former Chief Scientist outlines his new venture, ‘Proudly Human to allow creators to verify their work in the ocean of slop.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also discuss: The Australian Government’s defence deals with Palantir Canadian PM Mark Carney’s call for a Middle Powers LLM and whether agentic AI w...

The Burning Platforms panel kick around the carcass of this week when the White House went to war with AI, bosses found new ways to snoop on workers, and the market was moved by a bit of fan fiction. Per Capita’s Peter Lewis joins Digital Rights Watch chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and The Sizzle’s Cam Wilson try to make sense of the madness. And some reading to get you warmed...

On this week's episode of Burning Platforms, the team look at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi with first-hand accounts from UTS’s Human Technology Institute co-director and regular panelist Digital Rights Chair Lizzie O’Shea. They join Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis to also discuss: Mark Zuckerberg’s day in court World-leading workplace laws in NSW and the SASSopcolypse....

Governments may campaign in poetry and govern in prose, but what about the engineering that keeps our democracy flowing? The pioneer of public innovation and Professor of Collective Intelligence at University College London, Sir Geoff Mulgan, believes it’s time to get the boring bits right.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’...

Burning Platforms is BACK for 2026. The panels returns this week to unpack the existential risks AI presents with the Good Ancestors CEO, Greg Sadler. Spoiler: it's not just AGI.   With our regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis, the panel also discuss: Grok’s wild (and gross) summer ChatGTP’s foray into health and Ba...

As 2025 crashes out we survey the highs and lows of the year in tech with long-time platform burner Human Technology Institute co-director Ed Santow. Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis discuss: the Government’s AI Plan the Social Media Ban and what to read over summer Join us in discussing the issues raised in thi...

While the vested interests wrestle with the intricacies of AI regulation, are community library conversations the best bet for shaping our tech future? On this week's episode of Burning Platforms, we meet the academic who is fighting the algorithm with words.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis will also discuss:...

How much energy will AI really burn? Climate writer and activist Ketan Joshi joins Burning Platforms to chat AI and Climate: what we know, what we don’t know and what data centres have to do with yogurt tubs.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also discuss: Meta’s sloppy business model Apple’s arranged AI marria...

Is Big Tech’s domination of AI inevitable or are there different ways of organising our data to shift the power the dynamic? We discuss the RadicalXChange project with its new director, Jess Scully.   Regular panellists Digital Rights Watch Chair Lizzie O’Shea, Health Engine CEO Dan Stinton and Per Capita’s Peter Lewis also discuss: Government blocks text and data mining Human Rights over our brai...

AI is transforming our world at rapid speed, raising urgent questions about who benefits, who loses, and how we keep control of the future.  Panellists from the Burning Platforms podcast and guests, explore the promises and pitfalls of AI - and what’s at stake for all Australians. Panellists include:  Lizzie O’Shea: Human Rights Lawyer & Chairperson, Digital Rights Watch  Peter Lewis: Executiv...