Four For Friday | Sept 26, 2025
LF189 | AI for creativity, and for cancer, Australia's Heat Vulnerability Index, Killed by Google + voice tool: Hume
Welcome to this week’s Four For Friday - nuggets of interesting things I’ve picked up this week. Enjoy!
1. How AI can improve creativity
One of the metaphors I’ve been thinking about recently is that the relationship between humans and AI is a bit like early humans and dogs. Bear with me. At first, dogs were unstable, wild and would occasionally run off with babies (dangerous dingoes). But as early humans learned to tame the wildness out of dogs, they realized they could help elevate and improve the human experience - hunting, watch-keeping, herd-managing, companionship and more.
A bit tangentially, this graphic by Ross Dawson, maps how AI can be used to enhance creativity and productivity across a whole range of business needs, from research and strategy to product development and problem solving.
The So What? Rather than being the original “black box”, creativity can be better understood and executed if we use AI as a thought partner, idea catalyst and prompt. Like a faithful pet, AI can inspire us to greatness.
2. An AI medical support team for cancer
The seemingly unstoppable force of AI is bumping into the seemingly immovable rigidity of the medical industrial complex, and sparks are flying. The traditional doctor-patient relationship starting to be rewritten; patients are not alone any more, some have AI sidekicks.
This tech-savvy 60-something developed his own AI agentic team to analyse his medical data. It recommended a personalised, off-label treatment - overlooked or unfamiliar to his regular doctors - that has proven remarkably successful. He’s even created a startup - CureWise - to help others do the same.
The So What? A glimpse into a future where patients, armed with powerful analytical tools, become co-pilots in their own care.
3. A new Heat Vulnerability Index
The Guardian reports on a new index by RMIT that makes for sobering reading. Australia’s urban dream is in danger of going up in flames. Between 2016 and 2019 alone, heatwaves claimed over 1,009 lives in Australia, and it’s likely to get worse.
The Heat Vulnerability Index has some surprising results. While concrete clad poor city suburbs swelter, so too do some posh, leafy suburbs, such as Melbourne’s Carlton (which scores a 5/5 for vulnerability).
This is not just about poverty or urban design - it’s about how risk factors combine and cascade with potentially harmful results (e.g. 1 in 6 Australians suffer from cardiovascular disease, which together with heat can spark a growing public health crisis).
The So What? A similar heat crisis will be played out in many countries globally. It demands urgent urban planning reforms and a holistic, place-based approach, not municipal siloes.
4. Killed by Google
For those who think big corporates don’t do enough innovating - Killed by Google - is fascinating website illustrating the multiplicity of businesses (almost 300) that Google has started and then shut down.
The So What? Innovation - and corporate politics - is messy.
Bonus AI Tip of the Week: Hume
More fun with voice. This time a real-time, well executed, chat-to-speech tool. Give it a whirl!
That’s all for now - happy weekend everyone.
- Stephen