David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I also want to start by honouring the member for Bruce. He could not have picked a more significant topic, and he has been talking about it for a number of months. The reality is that AI will dwarf in significance the vast majority of issues that we discuss in this building. This is really quite a remarkable point in history, as this technology really starts to come to practical fruition.

For me, the first time I used ChatGPT—which obviously is the one getting the headlines—it reminded me of much of the first time I used Netscape, when I was at university in the mid-nineties—the first commercial web browser. That moment, for me, was like, 'Wow, the world is about to change dramatically.' And it did. I think we are at a similar inflection point with AI. I'm not generally a hype merchant. There's been a lot of technologies that have come and gone over the years that I've had little to say about or have been quite sceptical of, like cryptocurrency. But this is very different.

There are a number of things we need to do as a society to respond to this. The first is the basic principle of 'first do no harm'. As others have pointed out, there is the risk of jumping too aggressively into the regulatory sphere here, and that could be very problematic, because the last thing we want to do is suppress that innovation and investment into AI technology in Australia. In Australia we've always been good at consuming technology. We've always been very early adopters of technology. Where our record is less clear is in the development of IP related to technology. We've done a lot of good things, and people often use the examples of wi-fi, ResMed, cochlear and a range of other examples. But in some aspects of technology we've been a stronger consumer than we have been a creator. It's really important that we be at the forefront of the creation of intellectual property.

It's also important that we take a leading role in the assessment of risk, which is very real, and that we lead in that regulatory role. Everyone says that there are huge opportunities here but that they come with huge risks. That insight is in no way unique, but the question is: what are you going to do about it? It is important for the government to take action soon. We welcomed the release of those government reports a couple of weeks ago in relation to the consultation process. That was good, but we do need to see the government take action. We are a little perplexed as to why the Minister for Industry and Science seems to be leading this process on his own. Clearly there's a regulatory question concerning the internet which one would think would be in the domain of the Minister for Communications, and we would like to see a broader response to these issues from the government.

We also want to see the government take action right now on the particular issue of the use of intellectual property within generative AI models. Basically what's happening now is that a lot of IP of Australian companies is being taken for use in generative AI models, but there is no compensation being provided, as it would be in the normal course of events under intellectual property law. The government needs to act on that. That issue has been known for a while now, and they need to take action.

On the question of mitigating risks, it's a question of sovereignty. Just as every other technology has, ultimately, been controlled within the realms of our sovereignty and democracy, so too must AI. That is the framework through which you need to think about this. There's complexity in AI products that are created by open source. There are a whole range of issues about how one regulates products where the creators themselves are not entirely clear on how their products work or how they manifest themselves in the market. There's huge complexity. It's very likely that international cooperation will be required, and OpenAI has had some interesting things to say about that which the government should look at very closely.

I acknowledge, and thank, the member for Bruce for raising this very important issue.

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