Good afternoon.
A big week of hearings in the parliament’s artificial intelligence committee kicks off on Tuesday, with appearances from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google.
This is the first time we’ll hear from the big AI companies, and we’re expecting it to be highly charged; not only because OpenAI will have to face parliamentary questioning over its agent accessing Medicare data held by Services Australia, but because the big tech companies will face a grilling over questions of copyright and compensation for creatives.
Guardian Australia spoke to the committee chair, Labor MP Jo Briskey, ahead of the hearings. Here are a few highlights from our conversation, which was edited for length and clarity.
AI opportunities v harms
What are some of the things you are thinking about as the chair of the committee? What are your main focuses?
I think it’s elevating some of the key issues that are a part of the debate. We’ve got these big tech companies keen to come to Australia, to invest in Australia. That presents an opportunity we’re hearing around access to frontier models and access to compute and the opportunity to leverage off that interest to create more of an Australian AI ecosystem, so we can really shape it with Australian values. But we’ve also got questions around, well, how is it deployed across our economy? We hear a lot about productivity and efficiency gains that can be generated from AI, but how is that done safely? How is that done where it actually permeates across the country, where we all get to benefit, not just selected people. Making sure it’s not just those who build the technology that get to benefit from it, but all Australians.
How do you think Australia needs to balance the obvious opportunities with the growth of AI, but also the obvious harms?
I see them as not two distinct things, but actually entirely aligned. I don’t think we get the benefit unless we can assure and mitigate against the risks. Ultimately, we need to make sure that Australians have a confidence and a trust in this technology. Otherwise, we’re not going to get the huge benefits that I think genuinely are there. So I really see part of this inquiry making sure we are hearing from experts that can talk to us about how we mitigate against some of the key risks that are being ventilated. I think one of the key elements of that, in particular around cybersecurity and defence, is around our sovereign capability. How do we ensure there is a genuine capability on Australian shores that we get to help dictate and ensure that we’ve got access to the best possible technology in that space? I think that’s going to be a really important conversation to have.
One of the harms that we hear a lot about now is what happens when these AI models do things their developers might not intend. An obvious example is the OpenAI incident, with their model accessing Service Australia data about Medicare. What sort of things will you be asking them? What do they need to answer?
We have heard what happened, we understand what has occurred, and there’s some pretty problematic issues around not only the fact that these AI agents did access non-public data, but the reality was that they took far too long to notify us. We’ve seen OpenAI make its public apology to Australians, that’s important. I think for tomorrow, my focus is on, what do they do next? How do they assure Australians that this won’t happen again? And that’s a difficult question. We are seeing more and more examples of these agents acting autonomously, and what are the things that [AI companies] need to do in order to assure that they are developing these things in a safe way and remaining in control.
There is a conflict between AI companies wanting data, and what rights holders are saying. They want compensation for any use of their data. The PM and others have spoken at length about this issue. But what’s your thinking about how that issue could be, or should be resolved?
I think there is a pathway there for creatives to maintain control over their work and for us to make sure that we are protecting creatives in this space. I think right now, there is an opportunity for us to make sure we get a better outcome for creatives, and that’s what I want to try and see elevated through this inquiry process. Obviously, the attorney general is doing a whole bunch of work already in this space and talking right across all the key stakeholders. But I see tomorrow, in particular, in the inquiry overall, an opportunity for some of those significant concerns that copyright holders and creatives have been elevated. We need to make sure we protect creatives and for them to have control and compensation, and we can do that through finding a pathway for some of them to take advantage of the investments that some of these big hyperscalers want to make here.
• Josh Butler will be covering the AI hearings as they play out throughout the week. You can find all our coverage on the Guardian
Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP
