The federal government could \u201cexplore\u201d using artificial intelligence programs to write sensitive cabinet submissions or business cases, as part of a major initiative to embed AI across the public service, despite concerns about the technology increasing risks of security and data breaches.<\/p>\n
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, also announced on Wednesday the public service would build its own special AI program for government workers, spruiking productivity benefits for rolling out generative programs such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini to departments.<\/p>\n
While many public servants said trials of AI had helped their work, others voiced alarm at the poor quality and inaccuracies in AI-generated work, the potential slashing of entry-level jobs, and public fears about automated decision-making in the wake of the robodebt scandal.<\/p>\n
\u201cInterviews with Australian government agencies highlighted that women could be disproportionately impacted as they currently comprise most APS administration staff,\u201d stated a government report into a trial of Microsoft Copilot.<\/p>\n
Gallagher, also minister for the public service, told a conference the government wanted to see AI \u201cwidely taken up across government in every department\u201d in a bid to \u201ctake hold of the opportunities that AI presents\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gallagher also launched a \u201cwhole of government AI plan\u201d, and results from a six-month trial of Microsoft\u2019s Copilot across government.<\/p>\n
Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n The report\u2019s main finding was: \u201cThere are clear benefits to the adoption of generative AI but also challenges with adoption and concerns that need to be monitored.\u201d<\/p>\n Surveys found most trial participants were positive, noting management and executives specifically had reported productivity benefits and saving up to an hour each day through AI helping summarise information, write first drafts, or search for information.<\/p>\n Some 69% said it helped them work faster and 61% said it improved the quality of their work.<\/p>\n However, a range of negatives were also reported, including \u201cinaccuracy\u201d of AI output, with 60% of participants saying they had to make \u201cmoderate to significant\u201d edits to the AI-generated work. There were also concerns about \u201cCopilot\u2019s potential unpredictability and lack of contextual knowledge\u201d.<\/p>\n The AI plan sets out a goal \u201cthat every public servant will have training and access to generative AI tools\u201d. It says the to-be-developed GovAI Chat program will be rolled out widely, expected to be in the first part of 2026, but the government will also develop guidance on public servants using public platforms, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, to handle government information up to the \u201cofficial\u201d level of classification.<\/p>\n That included \u201cnovel\u201d suggestions from participants to use AI for assessing documents, writing public documents, and \u201cdrafting content for business cases and Cabinet submissions\u201d. The report included these ideas under a heading of \u201copportunities to further explore use cases\u201d.<\/p>\n But the Copilot report also raised security issues with data, with instances of \u201cCopilot inappropriately accessing sensitive information\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cUse of Copilot enabled some participants to access documents that they should not have had permission to access. Trial participants raised instances where Copilot surfaced sensitive data that staff had not classified or stored appropriately,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was largely because their organisation had not properly assured the security and storage of some instances of data and information before adopting Copilot. Without the appropriate data infrastructure and governance in place, the use of Copilot may further exacerbate risks of data and security breaches in the APS.\u201d<\/p>\n The report also noted public expectations around managing data.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the wake of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, public scrutiny around the APS\u2019 use of technology and automation to support decision-making is particularly high,\u201d it stated.<\/p>\n Gallagher pledged ongoing consultation with staff and unions about job changes, stressing that the government \u201cdoes not view widespread AI adoption across the APS as a way of replacing people\u201d. The Community and Public Sector Union was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n Vivek Puthucode, Microsoft\u2019s general manager of public sector, backed the government\u2019s plan and said the new technology could \u201chelp improve service delivery, strengthen policy outcomes and make government more responsive to community needs\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government could \u201cexplore\u201d using artificial intelligence programs to write sensitive cabinet submissions or business cases, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-135223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}