QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:30): I thank the member for Maribyrnong for her question and look forward to the work that she'll do chairing the committee across this parliament, the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence and its impact. Over the weekend, Anthropic and others pointed to the serious risks that can emerge alongside the development and implementation of artificial intelligence.

When AI companies themselves make these observations, it is even clearer that this change is something that we all must shape together, companies and governments alike taking responsibility, so that we make sure that technology works for people, so that it doesn't reduce Australians down to mere commodities to be traded and so that people are not treated as data points or pure economic entities but as individual human beings who carry with them an inherent dignity.

This is something that's been recognised in a lot of the debate, including by Pope Leo with the work that he has done. That is a deep ethos that drives much of what the government is doing on tech as well—the news bargaining incentive, our social media ban for under-16s, the digital duty of care, our national standards for artificial intelligence and the office of AI.

All of this represents a challenge that will continue to exist for years and, indeed, decades ahead. At their core, all of these reforms share common basic goals: to put people in charge, to reaffirm fundamental human values and to build genuine consensus. They show we take risks seriously and we take action to respond to them.

Indeed, it's something that the whole world is dealing with. They show also that we're listening to the concerns of Australians—to parents, to communities, to workers and to business—so that, when Australians ask what does a future that embraces this technology look like, we are able to answer with a confident and optimistic vision of change. If we make sure that AI works for people instead of the other way around, there are incredible benefits to grasp, and I believe that Australians understand that and remain optimistic about those opportunities.

Our job, all of us as a parliament—and, indeed, all of us as a society—is to deliver on that optimism with practical benefits and with technology that keeps people safe. That is our agenda and that is our commitment that we will take forward.