QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:29): I thank the member for Leichhardt for the question. He certainly understands that artificial intelligence is changing the way that we work, the way that we live and the way that society functions. It'll shift the way that we think about our economy, how we deal with the productivity challenge and how we deal with defence and national security issues as well.

The role of technology itself in government and politics will have a significant impact over coming years. There are massive benefits there, potentially, for governments and businesses to harness. Last night, I spoke at the Australian Industry Group about the potential productivity benefits that will come from a harnessing of artificial intelligence in the manufacturing sector, for example, that the AIG very much represents.

Above all, though, we must be clear eyed that the development and deployment of AI need to serve our national interest and need to reflect our values. Legislating Australian standards for AI is crucial to making that the case. Overnight, the President of Microsoft himself made the point that, at the moment, AI is less regulated than a bottle of milk or a washing machine.

And it shows. Right around the world, an unacceptable pattern has developed where companies with AI agents undertaking routine tasks end up breaking out of test environments or accessing restricted systems and data they should never have even attempted to access in the first place. Because, even though frontier agents are the latest development in AI, the fact is they are tools built by humans and they are not beyond that human reach.

That is a challenge for us: to make sure that humans stay in charge of this technology. Companies can, and they should, be putting safety first. It is the role of governments to hold them to account.

That is how humans remain in control of AI, shaping this change instead of letting it shape us. Our work on these issues spans the work of government and the parliament, as it should. Yesterday, the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, updating us on their work to date, wrote to us.

There are areas of consensus being worked through, and I thank the members of the committee, both from government and from opposition. I note the member for Curtin, as well, is playing a constructive role in this committee. But I'd urge the entire parliament to engage on these issues.

Once again, this is an important issue. It brings the parliament together. It certainly should not be an area of partisanship.

It needs to be something in which we all engage as much as possible, because this is a very new development, but it is a revolution that will have an enormous impact on the way society functions. (Time expired)