Anthony Albanese has signalled that reforms to ensure “fairness” is embedded in the rollout of artificial intelligence in Australia are next on his reform agenda.
After securing Senate support for tax reform to overhaul capital gains tax and negative gearing, the Prime Minister has turned his attention to AI.
His speech follows the concerns of international spy agencies about cybersecurity, that rapid developments in AI models could see the world face faster cyber attacks that are more complex and difficult to contain.
In a speech to the Centre for Economic Development in Australia, Mr Albanese said it was important that “national values” informed the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence, but was light on detail about what it all means.
“We can bring our national values of fairness and opportunity to AI, so that it grows our economy and strengthens our sovereignty, without fragmenting our society or damaging our environment,” he said.
“And we can own our place in the architecture of the fastest region of the world in human history.”
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has warned against a “tech bro free-for-all” that could drain Australia’s power and water resources.
“We are sleepwalking into an AI crisis,’’ she said.
“Until Australia’s laws are up to the task of regulating the big tech bros and their power-hungry datacentres, they should not be given the green light to drain our power and water.
“Until the necessary safeguards are in place and Australia’s resources are protected, approval and development must be paused.”
Meanwhile, independent MP David Pocock claims that Anthony Albanese is preparing to announce a new artificial intelligence reform agenda next month, potentially offering expedited approvals for new data centres.
US President Donald Trump’s intervention
In June, the US Commerce Department used export-control powers to demand that Anthropic restrict the access of foreign nationals to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, citing national security concerns.
Anthropic then pulled both of its newest frontier AI models offline worldwide.
Citing national security fears, the US issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees.
“The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected,’’ Anthropic said in a statement.
“Our understanding is that the government believes it has become aware of a method for bypassing, or “jailbreaking,” Fable 5.
“Fable’s safeguards are substantially more effective than those of any previously deployed model. No testers have yet been able to find a universal jailbreak – a jailbreak method that can very broadly bypass the model’s safeguards, unblocking a wide range of cyber capabilities.
A jailbreak refers to the process of manipulating the AI into bypassing its built-in safety guardrails so it can generate restricted or high-risk outputs.
What are the risks of Fable 5
The Fable 5 controversy reflects the US government’s fears that the model’s high-level capabilities in cybersecurity and coding flaws could be weaponised by bad actors.
“We are complying with the government’s legal directive and are removing access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all users,” the statement read.
“However, we disagree that the finding of a narrow potential jailbreak should be cause for recalling a commercial model deployed to hundreds of millions of people. If this standard was applied across the industry, we believe it would essentially halt all new model deployments for all frontier model providers.
“As we have stated publicly, we believe the government should have the ability to block unsafe deployments, as part of a statutory process that is transparent, fair, clear, and grounded in technical facts. This action does not adhere to those principles.
“We apologise for this disruption to our customers. We believe this is a misunderstanding and are working to restore access as soon as possible.”
Five Eyes warning
Mr Albanese’s speech comes just days after intelligence agencies for the Five Eyes warned in a rare joint statement that political leaders needed to “act now”.
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
“Frontier AI models are anticipated to exceed current industry expectations, fundamentally transforming both offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. The timeline is not years, it is months,” the statement said.
“In this environment, cyber resilience is integral to advancing business continuity, market confidence, and long-term value.”
The cybersecurity agencies had raised concerns that rapid developments in AI models suggested the world could face faster, more complex, and more difficult-to-contain attacks.
“A whole-of-organisation and whole-of-society response is required,” the statement said.
“Cyber risk can no longer be treated as a purely technical issue. This is a core business risk and leadership responsibility.”
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