"The Week on Wednesday" with Van Badham & Ben Davison

Author: Ben Davison

Join notorious Guardian columnist Van Badham and her labour activist co-host (and partner!) Ben Davison. As they deep-dive into the big news themes of the week and provide fresh, irreverent analysis about what's really going on in Australia and around the world.
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Language: en

Genres: News, News Commentary, Politics

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EPISODE 179: An AI Invasion SPECIAL EPISODE, with extra good news about puffins.
Episode 314
Wednesday, 22 July, 2026

Van Badham is joined this week by Australian Writers’ Guild CEO Claire Pullen for a SPECIAL EPISODE on the artificial intelligence invasion. Who owns AI? Who profits from it? Who gets to write the rules? From the challenge of copyright theft to the transformative impact of new technology on your job, my job and everyone’s job, Van and Claire go deep into sovereign capability, workplace automation and the political power of The Worst People in the World. They explore why the fight over AI is really a fight over democracy, grappling with the implications for future of work and the basic viability of human creativity. Along the way, they celebrate Australia’s scepticism, argue that the robots should be doing the laundry instead of writing TV… and finish with some super good news about puffins off the Isle of Man. Happy Week on Wednesday!