Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a starting point, I'd like to commend the chair of the committee, Senator Tony Sheldon, whose leadership and perspicacity have been evident throughout the conduct of this inquiry and are reflected in both the interim report and the thoughtfulness of the contributions that have been made to it. Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology in myriad ways, and its use cases are so broad that they will come to affect almost every aspect of Australian life. That is no less true in the context of the production, consumption and analysis of information and data, and AI in this space presents significant risks and opportunities for Australia.

This inquiry has revealed that there are some core regulatory and policy challenges that are required to balance those risks and benefits from AI. They include principles to ensure that AI is deployed safely and responsibly; that AI is deployed and utilised in a manner that improves fairness and opportunity in Australian society rather than detracting from it; that Australia as a country and our people derive the benefits, economic and otherwise, from the safe and responsible use of AI; and that Australia itself has some sovereign capability in the artificial intelligence space. It's also relevant to consider if our regulations in this space are broadly coherent with global frameworks, because AI is a global problem and the generation and use of this technology will transcend borders.

The inquiry also revealed some of the regulatory difficulties that AI presents as a technology. First, the current and future uses and capacities of AI are not fully understood and will expand further. There is often an asymmetry of information between AI developers and regulators, and the speed of technological development in this space has sometimes been underestimated and shows no signs of slowing down. The final report will address this issue in a more fulsome way, but the interim report deals with the potential for AI technology and in particular generative AI to influence electoral processes and to undermine public trust and confidence in our democracy.

The recommendations of this interim report reflect many of the recurring issues that arose during the inquiry itself. But may I make, as a starting point, a response to Senator McGrath's contribution today, which is to say that no-one from the government—neither in the recommendations in this report nor in the full report when it comes out—is attempting either to limit freedom of speech or to challenge or undermine a marketplace of ideas. That's simply not the objective here.

But what is a focus of the inquiry and what is going to be an important aspect of how we regulate AI in this country is making sure that AI is not used to mislead or deceive Australians. That's at its core, and it's so that Australians are not, for instance, consuming false information generated by AI and thinking that it's something else. It's not about undermining the contest of ideas. It's just about making sure that people understand who's speaking at a given point in time. Do they know the information is real? The technology is sufficiently good now—as was demonstrated by one of the other members of the committee, Senator Pocock, in one of his recent posts—that ordinary Australians can produce effectively fake content, and it's important in the context of our democracy that people are protected from that. The methods are various, and I think that's what the first recommendation goes to: attempting to utilise methods like watermarking, setting standards and disclosing to consumers when they are interacting with AI and with AI generated content to ensure that Australians know what they're looking at.

I'll deal with one of the other remarks that Senator McGrath made, which was that the Liberals are going to reserve their position. That's understandable to a point, but it does give us an insight into one of the things this parliament will have to do when it's dealing with artificial intelligence, and that is to be as nimble as it can be, because this is a space that moves quickly and the regulations may require significant nuance but also updates as things change in the space.

In respect of recommendation 2, I think the coalition generally indicated its support for that. The benefit of that approach, of taking our time, of getting it right, means that we can manage some of the regulatory challenges I mentioned earlier and can ensure that the regulations are carefully designed but also comprehensive. AI will seep into so many aspects of the way we communicate as a society, and it is important that we deal with that comprehensively, or holistically. Recommendations 3 and 4 are aimed at ensuring coherence in the way we deal with AI in the political space and in the broader community. Again, it's not about censoring different things; it's about making sure that people know what they're looking at.

The fifth recommendation is, I think, possibly the most important one in terms of the way we as a society deal with AI, because it deals with Australia's digital literacy in this space and the ability of Australians to navigate these fields and environments with appropriate information and sufficient skill sets and knowledge to avoid being deceived, to avoid being misled and to avoid being the victims of bad actors in this space. One of the things that we see around the world, in elections and in broader contexts, is that bad actors use this technology to hurt ordinary people or to deceive ordinary people. One of the best inoculations against that is digital literacy across our entire community. Therefore I'm very proud to stand by recommendation 5 and this interim report. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.