Andreas Seidl has conceded McLaren “need to understand” why Daniel Ricciardo was unable to match Lando Norris’ performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Ricciardo has endured a torrid 18 months at McLaren despite leading the team to its only victory in a decade at last year’s Italian GP.
The recent weekend at the Hungaroring was another example of his difficult season as McLaren put both drivers on the same strategy, with Lando Norris coming home seventh after starting fourth, and the Australian finishing 15th from ninth.
Assessing the dramatic differences again between his two drivers, team principal Seidl said: “[We scored] important points, obviously, for our battle in the constructors’ championship battle with Alpine.
“But, of course, we need to understand why on Daniel’s side, with exactly the same strategy, we were falling off so much with the hard tires in the final stint which put Daniel out of the points.
“That’s what we need to analyze together with Daniel.”
McLaren encouraged by upgrade progress
McLaren started the season with a brake duct issue, dropping the team to the back of the field.
After bringing its latest upgrades to the track in France, McLaren is continuing to see improvement as it continues to fight to be the ‘best of the rest’ with Alpine behind the leading trio of Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes.
“In the end, P7 was a good outcome for us because we have to accept that when the cars of the top three finish a race without major incidents, they are clearly a step ahead,” added Seidl.
“Therefore, P7 for us was a good result for various reasons.
“I am very happy that we could also show in the race the encouraging signs we had already seen in Paul Ricard and also on Friday since we introduced our upgraded package in terms of performance.
“They have definitely made a good step forward which allowed us to score the P4 in quali and the P7 of Lando in the race.”
Two words make the money go round in Australia’s multi-billion dollar welfare-to-work industry: mutual obligation.
When someone loses their job and applies for the dole, they are sent to an outsourced job agency to get help looking for work. It triggers a payment to the provider – and the possibility of more to come.
The federal government will spend more than $11bn on the two main outsourced employment services programs over four years. The top companies – some of them multinationals – will rake in hundreds of millions of dollars.
When a single mother’s child reaches nine months, she can be sent to a work preparation support program. The taxpayer sends cash to the charity or for-profit running the program, sometimes to check she is sending her children to playgroup or “storytime” at the library.
Those on the jobseeker payment may be sent to work for the dole, or a training course, which is sometimes run by the same company as the provider, or a related film.
And if you get a job yourself? The provider can still claim a payment. If you find yourself back on Centrelink payments, you return to a job agency. The money-go-round keeps spinning.
Since the Commonwealth Employment Service was wound up and the system was privatized in the late 1990s, a vast network of private job agencies and related training companies dependent on government contracts has formed: an “unemployment industry” fueled by the ideological mantra of “mutual obligation ” that guarantees their business model.
Some readers have been shocked by examples of the mutual obligations revealed by Guardian Australia over the past few weeks.
That includes those told to travel long distances – in one case a 250km round trip – for “tick and flick” appointments. Another person had to skip work to attend a job agency.
Then there are the courses: including basic computer and literacy tests and others such as “understanding body languages” and “making decisions”.
Last week we revealed how the industry successfully lobbied the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations to allow the practice of “same entity” course referrals to continue.
Screen recording of Communicare’s Understanding Closed Body Language course required to be completed by some jobseekers. Photograph: Australian Government / Services Australia
While some cases have emerged as part of our reporting on the new Workforce Australia system, advocates and jobseekers have rightly pointed out many of these problems have existed for years.
Some of the jobseekers interviewed by Guardian Australia over the past few months have struggled to get help when they needed it; others who did not need help were shuffled into “busy work” activities.
Alex North, once a jobseeker and welfare activist and now an organizer with the United Workers Union, recalls his time in the Employability Skills Training program, which is being expanded under Workforce Australia. More than $500m will flow to private providers via the program over the next five years.
The tasks he was given to fulfill the program included a “scavenger hunt” that involved counting car parks and listing the items in a vending machine at an Adelaide training provider – the winner receiving a freddo frog.
North already had a forklift license, and had worked in hospitality, retail and warehousing as a picker and packer. But because he had been on the dole for a set amount of time, the system insisted he undertook employability training.
On other days, he says, he was asked to copy text from paper to Microsoft Word, and create a fake business, including a logo.
“It was pretty humiliating,” he says. “Most people were just going through the motions.”
Former employment consultants, meanwhile, have told of referring jobseekers to online courses – at cost to the taxpayer – in areas their clients had no interest in. This occurred, they say, because it is the easiest way to game the key performance indicators that determine market share.
In other cases, it agencies allowed to receive extra direct payments.
One man who worked at a major for-profit provider for several years says: “A lot of people were saying, ‘Hey, this isn’t going to get me a job?’ And basically, our answer was, ‘It doesn’t matter what’s on offer, this is what you have got to do. It’s either this, or go get a job, or we’ll cut you off your services.’”
Experts agree that some unemployed people need support and guidance to get back into the workforce. That is particularly true in a period of low unemployment such as now, when a greater proportion of those on benefits are long-term unemployed.
But the evidence suggests the combination of a privatized employment services system and mutual obligations is producing perverse outcomes.
The winners are the private companies and charities that refer clients and/or provide programs; the losers are the unemployed, the disadvantaged and the taxpayer.
QuickGuide
Mutual obligations explainer
Show
What are mutual obligations?
People getting Centrelink payments must complete these tasks and activities in order to receive their benefits.
The obligations vary depending on a person’s circumstances and are listed in a “job plan”, which people on benefits must sign with their job agency to get their first payment.
To meet their mutual obligations, people on the new Workforce Australia program can complete various activities each month, such as job applications or education and training. These tasks are allocated a number of “points” and most jobseekers need to reach 100 points to keep their benefits.
Jobseekers in the Disability Employment Services program must also agree to a job plan with their consultant, which generally sets how many job applications they must send off each month. But they are not subject to the points system.
Those on the ParentsNext program must agree to a similar plan – and complete tasks related to pre-employment preparation or parenting – to receive their payments.
What happens if people don’t meet their mutual obligations?
They will receive a “payment suspension”, which means their benefits will be temporarily stopped unless they agree to rectify the problem with their job agency. They have two days to do this or their payment may be delayed. The suspension is generally automated.
Those found not to have a “reasonable excuse” for failing to meet their obligations will be given a “demerit point” by their job agency. After a sixth demerit point, jobseekers can have their payments docked by 50% or 100%, and then stopped completely.
The introduction of Workforce Australia is the biggest shake-up of the system since it was privatized by the Howard government in the late 1990s. After voting for the legislation that enabled the new system, Labor has now announced a parliamentary inquiry to investigate it.
In a laudable attempt to avoid the problem of job agencies neglecting the most needy jobseekers, Workforce Australia cuts the number of welfare recipients sent to the privatized agencies.
Only those considered disadvantaged will be sent to providers, while others fulfill their mutual obligations through an online platform.
While still in its early days, some jobseekers transferred from the old system to Workforce Australia have noticed little difference in the quality of the service. Emily Rayward, who is completing a PhD in creative arts, told of being made to do an online personality test at her first appointment of her. While she apparently had a “love of learning” but little “zest” or “spirituality”, there was little or no discussion about any relevant employment opportunities.
“It feels very frustrating that these job agencies are receiving all this money for what feels to be very pointless activity, while welfare itself sits below the poverty line,” Rayward said.
New system or not, as long as jobseekers are subjected to rigid, mutual obligations enforced by private organizations with an inherent profit motive, the money-go-round will only continue.
Ten people – including three children – have died following a house fire in Nescopeck, Pennsylvania, early Friday morning, state police confirmed to CNN.
The victims range in age from 5 to 79 years old,according to authorities.
Nescopeck is roughly 95 miles northwest of Philadelphia.
Authorities responded to the scene of a two-story house fire a little before 3 am Friday, according to a public information report from state police. Three adults made it out safely, while the 10 victims were located dead inside.
“Firefighters attempted courageous efforts to make entry into the house in the rear, but were pushed back from extensive flames and heat,” State Police Lt. Derek Felsman said in a Friday morning news conference.
The victims were identified by state police as Dale Baker, 19; StarBaker, 22; David Daubert Sr., 79; Brian Daubert, 42; Shannon Daubert, 45; Laura Daubert, 47; and Marian Slusser, 54. The three children killed were identified as two boys, ages 5 and 6, and a girl, age 7.
“We are utilizing multiple department assets to ensure a thorough and complete investigation into this fatal fire,” Felsman said. The house was “completely destroyed,” by the blaze, state police said.
When asked whether authorities were conducting a criminal investigation into the blaze, Felsman responded that “it’s a fire investigation at this time.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation, Luzerne County District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce told CNN.
“Should the fire marshals determine the cause to be intentional and incendiary, we would begin a criminal investigation for Arson,” he said.
The American Red Cross said it was responding to the needs of people displaced by the fire through financial support and other services, including mental health resources for those affected and first responders.
“As this situation continues to develop, we are committed to the community of Nescopeck and will, in coordination with local and county officials, bring our support and programs to help those affected by this tragedy,” the American Red Cross Greater Pennsylvania Region told CNN in a statement.
“If you’re sitting in an office pushing text around on a Word document, or entering data in an Excel spreadsheet, this is a job that’s already being highly automated. If you’re still doing that – these things will disappear quickly.”
Dr George said accounting was a good example of a profession likely to be disrupted by automation.
He said the number of accountants in Australia was projected to grow from 186,400 to 193,600 over the next decade, a tiny annual growth rate of just 0.4 per cent.
“This growth is slower than the rest of the economy at 2.6 per cent per year,” Dr George said. “We estimate 45,800 future accounting jobs could be replaced by technology.
“We found that economic growth will still drive the need for accountants. However, the nature of an accountant’s job will quickly evolve as tasks are both automated and augmented by technology and this will impact future demand.
“Simple robotic process automation in the back office of major companies across Australia – these technologies can quickly replace those routine tasks you do in an accounting job.”
But accountants, like finance brokers, he said, would be well-equipped to move into cybersecurity, an area identified as having high future demand. Accountants had transferable skills such as being able to process data, meet strict deadlines, consult others, and provide technical advice.
“As the labor market shifts, there will not be enough talent with the right skills,” Dr George said.
“Companies, therefore, need to rethink recruitment and retention strategies and allow for reskilling and role repositioning.”
A report by the Productivity Commission released this week, which found Australia is falling behind global peers, highlighted the role of technology in productivity growth but said tasks within jobs were more likely to be automated than whole roles being extinguished.
“This reflects a growing demand and premium for those distinctly human skills that are hard to automate – such as judgment, critical thinking, synthesis, or empathy,” the report said.
“Considerable automation of tasks within jobs is occurring over time, and could be a larger force than the automation of complete jobs.”
RLCraft is a modpack for Minecraft that players can easily download and play with. As expected, there are loads of modpacks out there for the game made by highly active modding groups. Since Minecraft can be heavily modded, it allows players to add all sorts of third-party features to the base game. The RLCraft modpack takes full advantage of that freedom and creates a completely new game out of the sandbox title.
It is one of the most detailed modpacks since it completely changes the title’s gameplay and UI. From adding a plethora of new mobs to changing several mechanics of the game, the modpack genuinely seems like an all new game. However, new players who are unfamiliar with the game’s mods may have some difficulty installing the modpack. The article below is an easy guide for readers to download and play with this modpack.
Steps to download and install RLCraft Minecraft modpack
1) Download Forge App
First, players will need to understand that this particular modpack needs Forge API to run properly. Players will need to download the Forge App that lets players easily download the modpack using Forge API. The app can be downloaded from here.
2) Install Forge App and download modpack
Players can install the Forge App and search for RLCraft in the Minecraft modpack tab (Image via Sportskeeda)
Once players download the software, they must install the Forge App normally. After the installation, players will see that the app features mods for various other games as well. Players will have to click on ‘Minecraft’ and then head over to the ‘Browse Modpacks’ tab that is visible in the top left corner of the app. Here, players will be able to find the modpack quite easily since it will be the first option on the list.
Simply hit ‘Install’ to start downloading the modpack. This may take some time depending on the user’s internet connection as the modpack’s download size is rather large. Players do not need to create a custom profile for the modded game version since this modpack will automatically download all the necessary files for the game to run. Since they are downloading 166 different mods that will work simultaneously, the download will generally take a fair amount of time.
3) Open the game
The Minecraft modpack even changes the main menu (Image via YouTube/ItzCuba Tutorials)
Also Read Story Continues below
Once everything is downloaded and installed, the ‘Play’ button will be available which players can hit to open a brand new official game launcher. It will not be connected to the regular game launcher and will only contain the RLCraft installation with the compatible Forge version written below it. Players can simply go ahead and hit ‘Play’ on the launcher to open the game.
Since RLCraft needs to run so many mods at once, it runs on the old 1.12.2 game version that is compatible with most mods. It will take a while to run the game since all the mods will have to be activated. Players can normally create a new world and enter their new and incredible Minecraft world.
“I don’t know if I will be quite good enough for a medal, but hopefully I can run a personal best and see where that puts me.”
Jenneke, who dances and bounces cheerily in the starting line, is unperturbed by the field’s credentials and the stony visages of the stars around her.
“I am not someone who, as a young athlete at my first champs, that got really intimidated by anyone. For me, when I go out there I am just trying to put my best foot forward and they are trying to do the same thing, and if they beat me they beat me.”
Jess Hull is back on track in Birmingham after suffering from COVID.Credit:Getty
Australia’s Celeste Mucci also qualified for the final after running a 12.96 personal best in her heat.
Later Jess Hull, who was out of action for a week after running at last month’s world championships with COVID, qualified for the 1500m final.
“I felt a little rundown going into the final and, as the hours went by towards the final, it was like ‘I’m getting really sick’,” she said.
“I spent five days flat on my back and I think running the end with symptoms was what flattened me, not necessarily the virus itself.”
Since then, she has got stronger in training.
“My legs were totally fine, it’s just the breathing that was a bit funky. Once I could get through that I thought, ‘I’m getting better every day, and so long as I can put that out of mind and just race – which is what I did in the final at worlds, I just focused on breathing and not how I actually felt – then I’m going to be OK’.”
She ran well to finish in the top five of her heat in 4.16 minutes, 13 seconds to advance to the final. Linden Hall also qualified after running 4:14.08.
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Abbey Caldwell, who was surprisingly not picked for the world championships despite winning the national title and having a qualifying time, said she was hungrier to do well in Birmingham after missing out. She qualified for the final by running 4:13.59 in her heat.
“There are certainly parts of me (that feel like she has a point to prove). That’s sport. There are always going to be sides to it where you have highs and lows, and you have to just ride them as they are,” she said.
“As hard as it was, it made me a bit more hungry and made me eager to really want to get the best out of myself now… I said I wanted to come into this championship as a competitor rather than just coming in as my first major, so I am going to see how it plays out really.”
Australia’s long jump record holder Brooke Buschkuehl, who finished fifth at the world championships, comfortably qualified for the final with her 6.84-meter second jump.
Get all the latest news from the Birmingham Commonwealth Gameshere. We’ll be live blogging the action from 4pm-10am daily.
The wife of a man missing since 2017 says she feels hamstrung by the fact she cannot obtain a death certificate and move forward with her life, almost five years after they were separated on a bush path in far southern Tasmania.
Key points:
Bruce Fairfax went missing while bushwalking in October 2017, with police yet to finalize their investigations almost five years on
His wife Louise says without a death certificate for him, she faces obstacles in organizing her life
Under Tasmanian law, a “presumption of death” arises after seven years — but the Public Trustee says an earlier application can be made for a certificate through the Supreme Court
Louise Fairfax was with her husband Bruce when the pair set out to walk the track at Duckhole Lake, a flooded sinkhole surrounded by dense forest south of Hobart on October 14, 2017.
The pair, who were experienced hikers, were with their dog when they became separated on the path. The dog was later found.
A search involving police, SES volunteers and hikers was launched, with helicopter flyovers employing thermal detection methods to try and penetrate the thick scrub.
No trace of Mr Fairfax has ever been found.
Mr Fairfax, 66 at the time he disappeared, had Parkinson’s disease and would be unable to survive without his medication for more than a week, Tasmania Police said.
Louise Fairfax on top of Precipitous Bluff in south-west Tasmania.(Supplied: Louise Fairfax)
This week, police featured Mr Fairfax as one of the seven “long-term” missing people as part of Missing Person’s Week.
Speaking to ABC Hobart, Dr Fairfax said almost five years on from her husband’s disappearance, she had moved past the grief stage and was now battling with practicalities.
“There’s the grief aspect, the suggestion that the uncertainty might be an aspect; there’s also the practical dealing with the fact I don’t have a death certificate.”
Without that document, she was stuck on a number of fronts, she said.
“I’m not allowed to do a lot of things because all these companies and bureaucrats want to speak to Mr Bruce Fairfax, and I tell them that he is dead, and they say, ‘Where is your death certificate’, and I tell them I don’t have one… you go round in circles.
“I was trying to query an electricity bill and they wouldn’t speak to me, [they said] ‘No, you’re not Bruce Fairfax’ and they tell me to go to the coroner’s office to get a death certificate… golly what a great idea, as if I never thought of that.”
When contacted, Tasmania Police said in a statement Mr Fairfax’s case “will remain open until he is located (like all other missing persons), and any information received will be assessed for investigation”.
In a statement for the Public Trustee, a spokesperson said there was a “presumption of death which arises when seven or more years have elapsed since the disappearance of a person.”
“If it is proved that for a period of seven years no news has been received by persons who are likely to hear from that person if alive, and all appropriate inquiries have been made, then that person will be presumed to have died and the executor can apply to administer the estate.”
The spokesperson said “in some circumstances, it may not be necessary to wait the seven-year period” and an application can be made to the Supreme Court seeking leave to “swear to the death of a person”, but added however that “evidence is required as to the date and place of death.”
How specific the date and place of death needed to be was not detailed.
It would seem unless an application to the Supreme Court is made, Dr Fairfax will have to wait for seven years to elapse before a death certificate could potentially be issued, according to Tasmanian law.
When asked on Friday, she said she would look into it but was wary of costs.
Bruce Fairfax walking in snow at Cradle Mountain.(Supplied: Louise Fairfax)
She has continued to hike and climb across Tasmania and says she is fit, but fears what might happen if an accident happened at her home.
A sign left by family members on a tent owned by Bruce Fairfax, during the search for him at Duckhole Lake, southern Tasmania, in 2017.(News Video)
“If I break a bone, this house will become unliveable for me… a coroner’s certificate would be really handy so that if I need to sell this house, I can.”
Dr Fairfax said she hoped she could secure a death certificate “before I am like Miss Havisham”, a fictional character the Encyclopedia Britannica lists as the “half-crazed, embittered jilted bride in Charles Dickens’s novel Great Expectations”.
“[I’ll be living in living in a home where the weeds are taller than the house and the cobwebs and so great that I can barely fight my way to the kitchen,” she said.
The 4.2km trail at Duckhole Lake is surrounded by dense forest and rated as “suitable for most ages”.(TasTrails)
Since Bruce went missing, the family gathers “every year”, Dr Fairfax said.
“We have climbed a mountain together, we would all converge at Dover and walk to Duckhole Lake together.
“Bruce loved mountain climbing and we do too, it’s a nice family way of remembering him.”
Currently, in Tasmania, there are 171 long-term missing persons who date back to the 1950s.
During the 2021/22 year, 193 persons were reported missing in Tasmania, with five still unaccounted for.
Anyone with information regarding Bruce Fairfax’s disappearance is asked to contact Tasmania Police on 131 444 or Crime Stoppers Tasmania at crimestopperstas.com.au or on 1800 333 000. Information can be provided anonymously.
A fire described as “violent” and “forceful” swept through a home in Northeastern Pennsylvania early on Friday morning, killing 10 people, including several relatives of a firefighter who responded to the blaze, according to the authorities and the firefighter.
Among those killed in the fire in Nescopeck, about 45 miles southwest of Scranton, were three children, ages 5, 6 and 7, the Pennsylvania State Police said. The other victims ranged in age from 19 to 79, officials said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. The State Police said three people had been able to escape safely.
Harold Baker, a firefighter with the Nescopeck Volunteer Fire Company, was asleep early Friday when he was awakened by the chirping of his pager, which was reporting a fire at a home, with 10 people possibly trapped inside.
Mr. Baker rushed to the station and then was among the first firefighters on the scene. As he turned the corner, his heart sank, he said in a phone interview on Friday evening. The address he had been given was incorrect. His son Dale, 19, and daughter Star, 22, were inside the home engulfed in flames, he said. In fact, Mr. Baker said, he knew everyone in the two-story home, which belonged to his brother-in-law of him, who was able to escape.
“I tried to get in as fast as I can,” he said. “I tried three times, and then they realized whose house it was and why I was trying to go in there, and they yanked me off,” he said of his colleagues. “They said, ‘No, you got to get the hell out of here.'”
When they found Dale, a volunteer firefighter who had followed in his father’s footsteps, Mr. Baker’s colleagues draped a flag over his body. “They took him out as a fallen firefighter,” he said.
Star Baker, who was to be married next year, also did not make it out alive, Mr. Baker said, adding that he was related to eight of the 10 people who died in the fire.
Violet Kessler of Berwick, Pa., said she was related to many of those who died.
Among the family members she said she lost were her father, a brother, a sister-in-law, a nephew and a niece who was her goddaughter. She said some family members were visiting on Thursday with plans to spend the day together on Friday at a pool and had decided to stay overnight at the house.
“I don’t even understand things,” she said of the losses. “I don’t even know how to take it all into my brain. It’s like a dream.”
A neighbor, Michael Swank, said he had awakened around 2:30 am and heard popping noises, which he had at first thought were gunshots. He looked outside and saw the porch of a house across the street engulfed in flames. He said that the noises he had heard seemed to be cans of paint or propane tanks igniting and exploding.
“I knew the Fire Department was not going to make it in time” to rescue the occupants of the house, Mr. Swank said. He heard neither nor saw any activity to indicate anyone was trying to escape from the fire, he said.
“Boy, it was just a horrendous fire” that spread swiftly from the porch to the upper floors, he said, adding: “It was an inferno. God bless those children that were in there. They didn’t have a prayer.”
In addition to Dale Baker and Star Baker, the State Police identified the adults who died as David Daubert Sr., 79; Brian Daubert, 42; Shannon Daubert, 45; Laura Daubert, 47; and Marian Slusser, 54.
Mr. Swank said that tenants at the home seldom lived there for more than a year or two.
Westpac’s rate falls to 4.89 per cent for borrowers with a 30 per cent deposit.
Mortgage brokers said the new fixed rates could be “very, very attractive” to borrowers seeking a lower-cost product – even if it was more than double the average fixed rate on offer two years ago – particularly if variable rates rose.
They expect other major lenders to offer competing fixed-rate products with lower rates and shorter terms.
Expect a lot of activity
“Those cheap loans will start to roll off in volume by the end of this year. A lot of property buyers will be looking for a new loan or to roll over their existing loan,” said Brendan Coates, an economist at the Grattan Institute.
“There’s likely to be a lot of activity with borrowers looking for new loans because they will be coming off a low fixed rate to a much higher variable rate.”
Despite the push by banks to offer a “cheaper” fixed-rate alternative to variable rate loans, many borrowers whose mortgages are set to expire in coming months will face significant increases in their repayments.
More than 90 per cent of fixed-rate borrowers whose loans expire in the next 18 months will face an increase in repayments. That rise will be as high as 20 per cent for about half of them.
Major broker groups, such as ASX-listed Australian Finance Group, say the number of borrowers fixing rates has fallen from highs of nearly 40 per cent during COVID-19 to less than 8 per cent as banks priced in rate rises.
AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said: “Lower bank longer-term fixed rates relative to their variable rates make sense because bond yields have failed since their peak in June.”
Rates for fixed-term mortgages reflect what is happening in the bond market, which is where banks, companies and governments borrow money.
For example, since June, the four-year bond yield has failed from just below 4 per cent to below 3 per cent.
Variable rates are determined by the RBA’s cash rate, which is still rising. On Tuesday, the RBA pushed rates up 0.5 of a percentage point to 1.85 per cent.
“The decline in longer-term bond yields reflects bond investors’ perceptions that slowing growth and recession is now a rising risk and that inflation will fall after peaking later this year,” Dr Oliver said.
“That in turn will see the RBA’s cash rate peak at levels lower than expected and maybe earlier.”
Sam White, executive chairman of the Loan Market Group, a leading mortgage broker aggregator, said: “The cut in four-year rates reflects that the medium-term outlook for rates is not as dire as short-term predictions. The fixed rates seem to reflect an expectation that while there will be more short-term rate rises, these will be moderate.”
Sally Tindall, research director of RateCity, which monitors fees and rates, said the cheapest variable rates from the big four were 3.77 per cent, which is 113 basis points lower than Westpac’s four-year rate. But cash rates are expected to increase by another 1.5 percentage points, or 150 basis points.
Mortgage brokers say the lower fixed rates will begin to look increasingly attractive as variable rates rise.
Phoebe Blamey, director of Clover Financial Solutions, said: “There’s going to be a bucket full of borrowers coming off a fixed rate looking for a fixed rate cheaper than variable.
“This will become a very competitive part of the market.”
More than half a decade after Microsoft’s truly monumental Taye debacle, the incident still stands as a stark reminder of how quickly an AI can be corrupted after exposure to the internet’s potent toxicity and a warning against building bots without sufficiently robust behavioral tethers. On Friday, Meta’s AI Research division will see if its latest iteration of Blenderbot AI can stand up to the horrors of the interwebs with the public demo release of its 175 billion-parameter Blenderbot 3.
A major obstacle currently facing chatbot technology (as well as the natural language processing algorithms that drive them) is one of sourcing. Traditionally, chatbots are trained in highly-curated environments — because otherwise you invariably get a Taye — but that winds up limiting the subjects that it can discuss to those specific ones available in the lab. Conversely, you can have the chatbot pull information from the internet to have access to a broad swath of subjects but could, and probably will, go full Nazi at some point.
“Researchers can’t possibly predict or simulate every conversational scenario in research settings alone,” Meta AI researchers wrote in a Friday blog post. “The AI field is still far from truly intelligent AI systems that can understand, engage, and chat with us like other humans can. In order to build models that are more adaptable to real-world environments, chatbots need to learn from a diverse, wide-ranging perspective with people ‘in the wild.'”
Meta has been working to address the issue since it first introduced the BlenderBot 1 chat app in 2020. Initially little more than an open-source NLP experiment, by the following year, BlenderBot 2 had learned both to remember information it had discussed in previous conversations and how to search the internet for additional details on a given subject. BlenderBot 3 takes those capabilities a step further by not just evaluating the data it pulls from the web but also the people it speaks with.
When a user logs an unsatisfactory response from the system—currently hovering around 0.16 percent of all training responses—Meta works the feedback from the user back into the model to avoid it repeating the mistake. The system also employs the Director algorithm which first generates a response using training data, then runs the response through a classifier to check if it fits within a user feedback-defined scale of right and wrong.
“To generate a sentence, the language modeling and classifier mechanisms must agree,” the team wrote. “Using data that indicates good and bad responses, we can train the classifier to penalize low-quality, toxic, contradictory, or repetitive statements, and statements that are generally unhelpful.” The system also employs a separate user-weighting algorithm to detect unreliable or ill-intentioned responses from the human conversationalist — essentially teaching the system to not trust what that person has to say.
“Our live, interactive, public demo enables BlenderBot 3 to learn from organic interactions with all kinds of people,” the team wrote. “We encourage adults in the United States to try the demo, conduct natural conversations about topics of interest, and share their responses to help advance research.”
BB3 is expected to speak more naturally and conversationally than its predecessor, in part, thanks to its massively upgraded OPT-175B language model, which stands nearly 60 times larger than BB2’s model. “We found that, compared with BlenderBot 2, BlenderBot 3 provides a 31 percent improvement in overall rating on conversational tasks, as evaluated by human judgments,” the team said. “It is also judged to be twice as knowledgeable, while being factually incorrect 47 percent less of the time. Compared with GPT3, on topical questions it is found to be more up-to-date 82 percent of the time and more specific 76 percent of the time.”
