{"id":172428,"date":"2025-12-03T07:02:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T07:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/172428\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T07:02:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T07:02:13","slug":"tim-ayres-on-the-ai-rollouts-looming-bumps-and-glitches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/172428\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Ayres on the AI rollout\u2019s looming \u2018bumps and glitches\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal government released its National AI Strategy<\/a> this week, confirming it has dropped<\/a> its earlier proposal for mandatory guardrails<\/a> for high-risk artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n

In responding to AI, the government has found itself caught between the unions, which have pushed for stricter regulation to protect workers and their jobs, and business wanting a \u201clight-touch\u201d approach to AI.<\/p>\n

To talk about how the government will keep up with effectively managing AI, as well as a long-overdue response to a \u201cjobs for mates\u201d review, we\u2019re joined by the minister for industry, innovation and science, Tim Ayres.<\/p>\n

On the government\u2019s decision not to introduce AI-specific laws<\/a>, Ayres denies the Albanese government ended up going with a \u201clight-touch\u201d approach.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pragmatic Australian approach that\u2019s about the circumstances that Australia is in, in strategic terms and economic terms. We\u2019ve got an existing regulatory framework now. Australian law applies now.<\/p>\n

The [new] AI Safety Institute is about making sure that we support our regulators. Advised, of course, by the best advice, whether it\u2019s in the intelligence communities or security agencies, engaging with the trade union movement and civil society, getting the best advice to make sure that we\u2019re uplifting government capability to analyse threats, to get into the new AI models and make sure that we\u2019ve tested them properly, and supporting government capability across the board.<\/p>\n

On whether the rollout of AI will lead to some mistakes as Australian workers and industry get used to the technology, Ayers acknowledges there will be some \u201cbumps\u201d:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to be glib about that, but I do think that\u2019s true [\u2026] that of course big social and technological changes are rarely free of bumps and glitches. We\u2019re really keenly aware in the government of the human challenges here. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why I just keep emphasising getting people together and having Australians and Australian institutions working together for a better deal is much better than standing back and letting these developments flow without us rolling our sleeves up and getting involved.<\/p>\n

Drawing on examples he\u2019s seen in his role as minister for science, Ayres says AI had could deliver real benefits for Australians over the next five to ten years.<\/p>\n

[For example], the capacity of artificial intelligence to dramatically speed up pharmaceutical design so that we get more drugs, more targeted design developed in Australia into pharmacies to support Australians\u2019 health, cancer treatment designs, composite material design. And in the energy sector, being able to [\u2026] smartly manage the energy grid so that we can expand renewables and expand electricity capability. There there is almost no area of technological improvement that won\u2019t be touched by artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

But with that rapid expansion comes real costs, including the vast amounts of electricity and water data centres consume.<\/p>\n

Ayres said he\u2019ll resume working with state and territory governments on developing \u201cdata centre principles\u201d very early next year. The Sydney Morning Herald<\/a> and others have reported that the government is weighing up making new data centres invest in big wind and solar projects or else build their own batteries on-site.<\/p>\n

Ayres says if data centres and new digital infrastructure end up paying for new generation and transmission capability, \u201cthat\u2019s a net addition to the electricity system, not a drain on resources\u201d. <\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s [\u2026] recent investment in Australia has been has underpinned and underwritten the development of a massive 300 megawatt solar farm<\/a> north of Albury at Walla Walla. There are opportunities here if we have a planned approach to make sure that this supports development in the electricity system. <\/p>\n

Following this week\u2019s release of the review into \u201cjobs for mates\u201d<\/a> \u2013 which the government held onto for two years and now declines to accept all recommendations \u2013 Ayres argues Labor \u201cdone has a lot to restore integrity\u201d since being elected in 2022.<\/p>\n

I think what we saw was the previous government so debauched the process that Australians lost confidence in the appointments process. Now we\u2019ve done a lot to restore integrity and a sense of purpose to these appointments.<\/p>\n

[\u2026] The rules that [finance minister] Katy Gallagher\u2019s announced and that the government\u2019s adopted today go a long way towards restoring public confidence. But of course, as every as every day goes on, we will continue to demonstrate that we actually take our responsibility in this area seriously and that our appointments reflect the public interest.<\/p>\n

Read more:
\n Albanese government shies away from tougher recommendations from ‘jobs for mates’ inquiry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government released its National AI Strategy this week, confirming it has dropped its earlier proposal for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-172428","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\/172428","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=172428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}