6 days ago
BTN Newsbreak 23/07/2025
AI SCAMS
First up, AI scams. Experts say they're on the rise, and one CEO is particularly worried. This is Open AI's CEO, you know the company behind ChatGPT, and today, he shared his fears about the future of AI scams. Look, scams aren't a new problem. Just last year, Australians lost more than two billion dollars to them. And new data shows the Australian Financial Complaints Authority has received more than 100,000 complaints for a second year running. But thanks to AI, scams are only getting more sophisticated and believable. Experts say the best way to beat AI scams is critical thinking. Asking yourself: does this actually seem like the person I think it is? Does the scenario seem realistic? Families are also being encouraged to create a safeword, a word you can ask someone to say when you're unsure about their identity.
UNESCO
US President Donald Trump has decided to pull the US out of UNESCO, the UN's culture and education agency. According to the White House, UNESCO's values are at odds with President Trump's America First Policy. It's not the first time he's done it. Mr Trump originally pulled the US out of UNESCO back in 2017 during his first term as president. But a couple of years ago, that decision was reversed by Joe Biden, who was the president at the time. UNESCO's director general says while she's upset by the decision, she was kind of expecting it.
HECS DEBT
Now that parliament's returned everyone is talking about Labor's election promise to reduce student loans. Yep, today legislation has been introduced to parliament to reduce student debt. It was one of Labor's big promises ahead of this years election proposing a one-off, 20% reduction to all outstanding loans. Now, if it passes about 3 million Aussies who have debts from studying at university, or debts from doing things like apprenticeships will have their debt reduced! You see, here in Australia, it costs money to go to university but Aussie students can apply for HELP, which lets you borrow money from the government and pay off your debt bit by bit once you start earning a certain amount of money. But over the years, the cost of uni has gone up, making student debts more and more expensive so there have been a lot of calls for a reduction of student debt like this one. Meanwhile others aren't too happy with the idea because it'll cost the budget 16 billion dollars. Money that they reckon should be spent elsewhere.
NIGERIA ROBOTS
First up, to a robotics competition in Nigeria. Where young inventors are showing off robots they've designed to solve specific problems. Among the inventions was a land mine detecting robot, a tractor slash irrigator for farmers, and a prototype fire truck dubbed the "firebot".
SHIPWRECK
Now to a partial shipwreck on a remote beach in Scotland. A local schoolboy discovered it last year, and it's taken researchers until now to work out – it's actually a 250 year old wreck from an old navy boat turned whaling boat called the Earl of Chatham.
BUTTER SCULPTURES
And finally to these sculptures made entirely out of butter at the Ohio State fair in the US. The butter cow is a bit of a tradition here with the butter being donated by dairy farmers, and according to organisers it'll all be recycled once the fair is over.
