IN BRIEF #
- Tech giants previously claimed to decide investment amount based on Australia's copyright settings.
- Albanese's speech won't detail changes to copyright laws.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will launch the Office of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to set out a national framework for the evolving technology on Wednesday.
The Office, which will be under the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, will coordinate the design of new Australian Standards about AI and its impacts on issues such as energy, copyright, productivity, education and labour rights.
"Australia will be the first country in the world to bring these issues into a single, national framework," Albanese says.
The announcement comes as several tech giants, including Anthropic, which creates the AI chatbot Claude, seek investment in AI data centres in Australia — amid concerns about their impact on Australian intellectual property.
Albanese will also respond to Anthropic's earlier claims that its investment in AI development and infrastructure will depend on copyright policy certainty, arguing that the right guardrails will attract business.
News that makes sense #
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"And getting this right will enhance our appeal to international investors, by delivering greater clarity and speed for approvals, and a streamlined process for verifying compliance," he says.
Digital duty of care on the way #
Set to speak in Sydney, Albanese will confirm the national framework adds to the government's ongoing design of digital duty of care and mitigation of risks posed by AI on children and national security.
"We know that both extremists and state actors already use AI to create propaganda aimed at young people - and to spread disinformation that targets democracies," he says.
Labor MP Ed Husic, a former industry minister, said giving big tech social licence was a path "sadly doomed to failure".
"We tried self-regulation for ... a couple of decades, found out that it didn't work, and it won't work on a financial basis for these firms," he told Sky News on Tuesday.
"None of these firms will go one out from the other to bring in guardrails to limit the risks."
— With additional reporting by the Australian Associated Press.
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