The following UNSW experts are available for comment:
- Dr Sue Keay, Director of UNSW's AI Institute, says:
- Professor Lyria Bennett Moses, from UNSW Law and Justice, is an expert in the relationship between technology and law. She says:
"The government has committed to start with an audit of existing law, identifying gaps and developing new law as required. This response provides an opportunity to focus on values and concerns, such as those to which discrimination law, consumer law and privacy law are directed, and build out from there in ways that protect Australians as the technology continues to evolve in unpredictable ways.”
For further comments, she can be contacted on: [email protected]
- Professor Toby Walsh, from UNSW School of Computer Science and Engineering, is an AI expert. He says:
"The long awaited National AI Plan says all the right things but lacks ambition and commitment. It’s hard not to compare against the UK’s AI growth plan announced one week ago with AU$48 billion of investment, both public and private, into the AI sector in the UK promised in the last month alone. The Australian plan includes just $30 million for a much needed AI Safety Institute.
But where is Australia’s sovereign AI fund to invest in AI startups to match the AU$1 billion just announced by the UK government? Where will Australia’s AI growth zones be to match the millions of pounds that the UK government is investing into AI growth zones in North England, Wales and elsewhere? Where is the extra investment into research to accelerate science with AI to match the UK’s announcement of another AU$250 million in this space? And where is the extra investment into AI compute for universities and startups to match the UK’s announcement of AU$500 millions?
As for safety, why did the government decide to backtrack on new AI regulation, that the Minister Husic had vocally supported? There will be fresh harms that AI introduces, outside of existing regulation. If it is good enough for Europe, why is new AI regulation not needed here? Did we not learn anything from social media? Along with many benefits, social media introduced new harms that we are only now regulating after they impacted so many young people. Can we not repeat this mistake? We don’t let the drug industry regulate itself. Why do we let the tech industry when the impacts on our (mental) health are just as great?
Many others have called for greater investment and regulation. ATSE put out such a report very recently saying exactly this. I chaired a report for ACOLA, the Australian Council of the Learned Academics at the request of the Chief Scientist and PMC over 6 years ago. This also called for greater investment in and regulation around AI. We are still waiting for the government to respond with ambition to the opportunity (and to the risks). We will miss this boat if we don’t steer a better course. Where else does the government expect the desperately needed productivity gains to come from if not from technologies like AI?"
For further comments, he can be contacted on: [email protected]