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I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to 7am. The Prime Minister has announced a plan for how Australia approaches AI, with a new office to be created, overseen by him, and new standards expected to be legislated early next year. As part of the plan, new data centres can be fast tracked but will have to supply their own power. And while the Prime Minister said that artists should be able to control the use of their work, and there are still fears about what will happen when potential investment meets copyright law. Today, chair of Digital Rights Watch, Lizzie o' Shea on whether the Government can walk the tightrope of the AI boom while protecting and benefiting all Australians. It's Thursday, July 16th. So, Lizzie, let's start with what's just been announced. The Prime Minister's office will now have just direct oversight over AI policy as part of this new office, the Office of Artificial Intelligence.
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Effective today, I am establishing the Office of AI in my own department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. It will work closely with the Minister for Industry and Innovation, Tim Ayers, and the Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy, Andrew Charlton. Tim, to coordinate the design of our new Australian standards and to bring together the work that ministers right across the Government are undertaking.
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What's your kind of initial understanding of what that's going to mean?
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It is a little unclear, but it's good in my mind to see some centralisation around this policy field. And that's because when we talk about AI, often Australians are thinking about a range of different technologies and products. They might be thinking about the productivity tool that they use at work that's got all these supposed benefits. They might be thinking about the chatbot that their kid uses and then their concerns about safety guardrails around that. They might be thinking about how it's used in military tech. Like it's a term that covers a broad range of issues and there's some utility in having the PM step up and say, we're going to be the people that are centrally responsible for it.
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Hmm. And so part of the announcement involves a faster approval process for AI projects, including data centers, which is where all the potential investment is. But there are risks that come with speeding up that approval process, aren't there?
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Yeah, absolutely. So this is the other big component of the announcement today, talking about fast tracking of construction of the infrastructure that supports AI technology.
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It is not our goal to try and legislate for every possible eventuality or risk. That only creates the risk of Australia missing out on investment altogether. This is about having the flexibility to keep Pace with change and get out in front of it.
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Now, this is much more controversial for a variety of different reasons. Obviously, data centres need to make use of natural resources, things like power and water, and that will impact our access to this as consumers. So there's potential cost of living issues and the like, there's prioritisation issues associated with that, there's planning issues associated with where they go and the kind of construction that takes place and what those resources are being diverted away from. In the United States, it's been extremely controversial how these data centres have been built and often very quickly. I think it's just today that New York announced, the state of New York announced a moratorium for 12 months on the construction of data centres while they engage in a process of working out how to prioritise, how to make sure community interests are being heard. So the fast tracking announcement that does bring in a lot of these issues I am a bit concerned about, because my concern is that that might be fast tracking some kind of production of infrastructure, but it is also potentially a problem for accountability. You know, companies like Anthropic have been sniffing around in Australia for a long time now, seeking to build large data centers to train their models on. There's reasons why they can't do that right now, but the infrastructure, they see Australia as a place where the infrastructure could be hosted very effectively.
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We have a continent to ourselves. One of our big advantages, we have more than enough room for new data centres without them competing with new housing. And we will work with every level of government to see common sense prevail.
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And that, I think, is a source of concern for a lot of people who don't want to replicate some of the problems that we've seen with construction of data centres in the United States who might maybe want to prioritise getting to net zero, having a more sustainable economy, who maybe don't necessarily think that the productivity benefits or the other benefits associated with this technology are very clear, that some of this is quite untested. And so we're being asked to make some compromises in that respect. One of my concerns is that Australians are very mistrustful of AI in global terms. We rate as some of the least optimistic about this technology. And I think one of the ways that we can potentially get benefits from using this technology is by putting trust at the centre and demanding trust, rather than, say, working to obtain it through community consultation and the like, I think will be a problem. Fast tracking infrastructure build could increase the kind of mistrust that we see for the industry and the technology.
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And one of the other things that I think a lot of people are really worried about is what AI is going to mean for jobs. I mean, we've just had this open letter from hundreds of economists and scientists, even AI executives, warning that AI could transform the world's economy and potentially put a lot of pain people out of work. So what considerations would you like to see given for workers in this AI framework?
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Yeah, I think that's critically important. I think when people think about AI, they often think about the potential for jobs to be lost. That's because a lot of the leaders of the industry talk about that a lot.
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Right.
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And I do think it's worth interrogating how realistic that is. There's jobs markets that disappear, that come and go over periods of time with new technology. I don't think it necessarily means less jobs, but it may well have an impact on the quality of those jobs. And I think that's important to think about.
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Right.
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How can we make sure people still have dignity at work, still do work that is meaningfully compensated, that can be a livable wage, can be a life of meaning. Right. In an age in which a lot of the technology is trying to take away some of the human discretion and human involvement in decision making in work. So I think it's important also as a source of regulation. We've seen some interesting laws implemented around the world, but even in New South Wales, there's been an interesting law recently which allows unions to have a say in how systems of allocation of work making use of AI can be examined, can be questioned, can have some consultation engagement with workers. And that kind of engagement, I think, is really important. So there's work that the government could do if it wanted to introduce that kind of consultation engagement with the workforce. There's models for that. New South Wales being one such model. I think more broadly, there's a question around how you ensure that the productivity benefits, the gains and the like are retained in Australia. And that might be through things like taxation, some of these large companies as well. That's a much more tricky and contested policy space. But I think that's what Australians sort of expect from their government, taking on some of these large, very profitable industries and making sure that they're not just extracting from Australian society, that they're actually returning benefit to where they're creating it, which is here.
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Still to come. Will Australian artists be protected under the new AI framework?
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Foreign.
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Lizzie, can we talk about copyright? Because it's the most controversial and most meaningful part of this entire issue. According to some reports, Anthropic has already made this offer, this $21.5 billion investment offer contingent on changes to, to copyright. The Prime Minister in his speech said that Australian writers and musicians, artists, journalists, must retain ownership of their work.
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Our laws will spell that out plain as day. An artist's creative endeavour is their work and their property. No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist's control.
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Do you think that will go far enough to ease people's concerns around copyright?
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Yeah, I think that's a great question. So one of the issues that's in dispute, of course, is copyright protection. That was touched on by the Prime Minister. One of the barriers to training some of these models, like Anthropic's model, is protections for creative works that mean that how they operate in places like the United States wouldn't be considered legal here. I think there's lots of things about the current copyright regime that creatives don't like, other people don't like. But there's also a really serious problem with a very large companies, companies like Anthropic, taking the hard work of people who've done that creative labor that we all benefit from. Like, I think a life or a society without artists would be a terrible thing. Right. And allowing those companies to make immense profits and to grow immensely quickly off the benefit of that work without paying compensation for it, without paying seeking permission. I mean, it should be said like copyright is not just also about payment, it's also about seeking permission. And having that moral right is what it's called in legal terms to say how your work might be used. Right. So it's also about creative freedom. So it is a watershed moment, I think, how the government responds to this immense pressure from a very large company. Australia's been consistent in denying that they were going to tinker with copyright laws or raise it as a possible policy alternative. But as time goes on, you do wonder whether you've got an unstoppable force meeting and a movable object. Something's going to have to give. And I also remain concerned about some of these deals happening behind closed doors. There's a real incentive here to disguise what is going on or to limit what the public sees. And negotiations occur with these very large companies who've built up a lot of capital by doing a lot of different things, by being involved in media and other kinds of activities, doing lots of lobbying. And so then you have a deal that looks like a closed door deal done and then presented to the public. I can see why that would be, again, a source of mistrust. Right. If we want an industry that is trustworthy, that's. And a government that people have faith in will do their bidding, then there's some utility in being open about this and having a consultative, engaged process and bringing people along the journey rather than presenting them with a done deal at the end.
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I wanted to ask you a bit about lobbying. In his speech Albanese, he referenced civil aviation in the 20s and genetics in the 90s as these kind of comparable moments of technical revolution that the government had to address. One big difference, though, is that, you know, since the 1920s, political lobbying has become much more organised, much more sophisticated. So how powerful is the tech lobby in Canberra now? And should we be worried about how it is influencing or might be influencing policy decisions?
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I think that's a legitimate concern. So people understand that large centralisation of power in corporate interests can have a negative impact on democracy. We've seen TEPG being very influential. There's no doubt about it that they have an effective lobbying arm. They also are quite unpopular with the public and mistrusted, so they're working hard to cultivate a good relationship with lawmakers often. But there's a lot of public support for strong regulation reform and a lot of, I think, concern about tech lobbying in Canberra, that it would be a mistake, I think, on the part of government to ignore.
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And the Albanese government, they're pitching this as a world first. How does what the Prime Minister is proposing compare to how the rest of the world is tackling AI?
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Yeah, I saw that. He talked about an office in his office as being a world first in terms of AI regulation. There's lots of different approaches, there's lots of ways in which we could pick the best bits and try and import them here. And I'm pleased to see that there's an acknowledgement that we've got to move towards a more conscientious, centralised way of making policy in this space. I think it would be a shame to not make use of some of the good examples around the world that frame the technology in a particular way, that focus on trust and rights and responsibility and local benefit.
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Lizzie, thank you so much for your time.
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Thanks for having me.
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Also in the news, the Liberal Party is considering gender quotas to increase the number of women in its parliamentary ranks. The idea has resurfaced in a new discussion paper from the Liberal Party Commission established to review what went wrong after the party's federal election. Defeat. Liberal leader Angus Taylor has opposed quotas in the past. And Nicky Winmar has been removed from the AFL hall of Fame after being found guilty of three assault charges involving violence against a woman. The chair of the AFL Commission says it acknowledges Winmar's significant contribution to the game and his place in history. But the violence against women has no place in the community, in the game, or in the values the Australian Football hall of Fame seeks to uphold. I'm Ruby Jones. This is 7:00am thanks for listening.
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Happening.