Artificial intelligence proposals find the middle ground

The Australian Academy of Science welcomes the release of the Australian Government’s proposals paper for introducing mandatory guardrails for AI in high-risk settings, and a voluntary AI safety standard.

The documents are an important next step in the Australian Government’s Safe and responsible AI in Australia consultation and are consistent with our international commitments through the Bletchley and Seoul declarations.

Academy President Professor Chennupati Jagadish said AI is transforming science and our society, which is why the Academy has advocated for a national strategy and guidelines for the responsible use of AI.

“Regulation of AI should not limit innovation but rather create a safe and ethical framework for science and society to prosper,” Professor Jagadish said.

“A solid regulatory framework is essential to ensure Australia is prepared for the transformation AI is bringing, and this can be provided through the urgent introduction of the proposed mandatory guardrails.

“The proposals, including to introduce an Australian AI Act, is a major step in the right direction to develop laws and regulations that appropriately address the opportunities, challenges and risks of AI.

“It is important that any regulatory environment is adaptable and can anticipate the adoption of AI and guide its safe and responsible use, and that progress to introduce mandatory guardrails is made swiftly.

“Time is of the essence. Australia needs to progress the development of anticipatory regulation in AI and other areas of emerging science.”

The Academy will publish a full response to the consultation on proposed guardrails in the coming weeks.

“We will continue to convene expertise to assist the Australian Government in guiding the responsible adoption of AI for the benefit of all Australians,” Professor Jagadish said. 

The Academy is optimistic that Australia can lead in AI and related sciences if the Australian Government:

• develops a national strategy for the uptake of AI in the science sector, including scaling up investment in fundamental AI science
• ensures that Australia’s AI capability doesn’t rely on other nations by uplifting our sovereign high-performance computing facilities
• implements the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science (since AI is trained on available data, keeping scientific data and peer-reviewed publications behind paywalls impacts the ability of these systems to leverage the most reliable information).

Read the Academy’s submission to the consultation process and our statement on the government’s interim response.