Veronika Wild

  Image generated entirely by Microsoft Bing AI How do you hold back the tide? When I mentioned to my granddaughters -now aged 18, 16 and 13 respectively, that the Australian Government was planning to introduce an age limit of 16 on Social Media use, they practically fell about laughing. “That horse bolted long ago, Grandma,” was their response. I think our poor Prime Minister would be shocked if he knew how widespread social media use was among teens and what competent users they are.  According to Science News 2/3rds of 13 -17-year-olds use Media platforms like TikTok and 60% use Snapchat or Instagram. The young people in my orbit have all been using Social Media at least since late Primary School. With the days when children could play with their friends in the neighbourhood long over, they use it to chat to their school friends, stay in touch with those they’ve made all over the country, share music, jokes, craft, beauty and make up ideas, all with no apparent ill – effect

AI generated Image - When I first asked for an illustration of a scammer at work, AI kept making images of lone wolves working away in basements with graffiti on the walls, but that isn't how most modern scammers operate. There are thousands and thousands of them and they are more likely to be working in a modern office building or a multi -storey apartment block in places like India, Cambodia, Myanmar or Dubai, under direction of various overlords Wow! Double Wow! I am firstly amazed at how sophisticated scammers have become and how quick they’ve been to make use of new technology such as AI. Secondly, I’m very impressed at how much Google Translate* has improved. The weird Grammar which used to be a dead giveaway on German texts is now nearly perfect. Chat GTP 4 also has an excellent translate function, which again only made one error, albeit a different one to the one Google made. [* Must be a different version to the one attached to Blogger - I just read a German version o