The Albanese government has decided against legislation to manage artificial intelligence, with a new national roadmap emphasising Labor’s focus on the technology’s economic benefits and plans to “unlock” vast datasets held by private companies and the public service to help train AI models.
Supporting and reskilling workers affected by AI in their jobs, boosting investment in datacentres, and sharing the productivity benefits across the economy are key components of the Labor government’s National AI Plan, launched on Tuesday.
The document also warned of vast water and power resources being sucked up by datacentres, AI-facilitated abuse targeting women, and unanswered questions about copyright protections for artists, writers and journalists at-risk of having their content hoovered up by large language models.
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But the government has rejected the European Union’s example of setting up a stand-alone AI act of parliament – an approach pushed by former minister Ed Husic – saying existing legislation will cover the fast-growing new technology.
“This plan is focused on capturing the economic opportunities of AI, sharing the benefits broadly, and keeping Australians safe as technology evolves,” said Tim Ayres, minister for industry and science.
Ayres’ AI plan said the government wanted to “harness AI technologies to create a fairer, stronger Australia where every person benefits from this technological change”, saying it could improve health, disability, aged care, education and employment, and help create jobs.
The plan is supported by a $30m commitment to set up an AI Safety Institute next year, which will advise the government on the technology, including whether new laws are needed in future.
Ayres said the government would measure “success” by “how widely the benefits of AI are shared, how inequalities are reduced”, and how workers were supported.
As unions voice alarm at AI replacing human employees, the minister said technology “should enable workers’ talents, not replace them”, and he committed to consultation with unions and business on workplace uptake.
The document spruiked Labor’s desire for Australia to be a top destination for investment, noting local excellence in datacentres, academic research and AI jobs.
Ayres had signalled early in his tenure that a stand-alone act was not in his immediate sights, amid much debate about how the government should respond to the risks and benefits of AI, and calls from business to support the productivity-boosting technology.
“The government is monitoring the development and deployment of AI and will respond to challenges as they arise, and as our understanding of the strengths and limitations of AI evolves,” the plan said.
Labor earlier rejected calls from the business community and Productivity Commission to support a text and data mining exemption for AI companies to help train their computer models on copyright material like news…
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