Two days into his administration and US President Donald Trump has already made a big splash in the booming world of artificial intelligence.
As with all things involving the US, these decisions are likely to reverberate around the world, not least in Australia.
Experts are divided on the issue, with some seeing opportunity in the heavy investment, and others worried the lack of regulation will lead to dangerous outcomes.
University of Technology Sydney Professor Michael Blumenstein said Trump’s stance on AI is “very welcome”, coupling it with the president’s advocacy for space exploration.
“These declarations in the US do have significant implications for Australia and the world, given that there is already a race globally in both AI and space,” he said.
“As Australia is a close ally of the US, these announcements will hopefully stimulate a more ambitious position for our nation to contribute to AI research and technology development for local and global benefit as well as re-igniting investment in space research and to support the local space industry.”
He said Australia’s leading role in AI research had not translated into innovation yet.
However, Dr Fan Yang, a research fellow from the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne, sounded a cautious about the far-reaching deregulation Trump had ordered.
“This deregulation spans key areas such as AI safety, equity, diversity, and online disinformation, which will exacerbate harm for communities that experience different levels of vulnerability,” he said.
“Australia is not well-equipped to respond to these forthcoming changes from the US, given the widespread reliance on American technological infrastructure within the country, the voluntary nature of AI safety standards, and the abandonment of the Combatting Misinformation and Disinformation Bill.
“Even if enacted, the bill itself is insufficient to effectively address the growing challenges of online disinformation.”
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Associate Professor Niusha Shafiabady, from the Australian Catholic University’s Department of Information Technology, likewise warned that Australian and US AI paths diverging could give rise to difficulties.
“We have many ongoing collaborations on sensitive projects including defence applications with our American partners,” she said.
“In Australia, we are bound to follow the mandatory guidelines for safety and ethical applications of AI.
“Now that the same doesn’t apply to our US-based collaborators, we wouldn’t be able to continue working with them as effectively and efficiently as before.”
She said ethical guidelines were “indispensable and necessary”, and the US removing them would make collaborations “very tricky”, with Australia perhaps even having to ban some projects coming out of the US.
However, Good Ancestors Policy CEO Greg Sadler said Trump was “probably right to be betting big on AI”.
Good Ancestors Policy is an Australian charity focused on AI.
“The growth of AI capability has been dramatic, and the implications of transformative AI are something that the next Australian government will have to grapple with,” Sadler said.
“Australians express higher levels of concern about AI risk than any other nation. A significant portion are worried about the potentially catastrophic outcomes highlighted by leading experts.
“Delivering on Australia’s commitment in the Seoul Declaration by creating an AI Safety Institution should be a top priority.”
