OpenAI warns Labor about global security threats
Australia needs to slow down its artificial intelligence use and create better security laws, the companies creating the technology have told the federal government.
In a submission to an ongoing inquiry, OpenAI said national leaders had a responsibility to work with other countries to stop global security threats:
Many of the most consequential risks will not stop at national borders, making international co-ordination increasingly important.
It said Australia was in a narrow “defender’s window” during which it could use the technology to find and fix cybersecurity threats, rather than create them.
Tech giant Atlassian, which runs AI system Rovo, used its submission to urge the government to bolster its laws. International standards and work already undertaken overseas should be used to protect Australian consumers, it said.
“We need to embrace governance and regulation as a force multiplier for trust,” Atlassian’s head of regulation, Anna Jaffe, wrote, arguing that tighter privacy crackdowns would also benefit the tech sector as clients would be more likely to engage with them.
The comments come after OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, and Elon Musk displayed rare unity in backing Anthropic’s head Dario Amodei, who called for a slowdown in “reckless” AI development through a three-part essay.
– AAP
Key events
Patrick Commins
Expect fuel prices to be ‘much higher for longer’, says RBA boss
Australians should brace for “much higher for longer” oil prices and fuel costs, according to Michele Bullock, the RBA’s governor.
Bullock told an parliamentary economics committee hearing that when the US-Israel war on Iran started there a “baseline assumption, certainly on our part and amongst many other countries, that it would be short-lived, and that the rise in oil prices and associated fuel prices and other energy prices would be short-lived, and they would ultimately come back down”.
While the worst-case scenarios may not have come about, “certainly scenarios where we’re seeing much higher for longer oil prices, fuel prices, those sorts of things, that’s sort of more in the world we’re in now”.
As the war rumbles on into its eighth month with little sign of resolution, Bullock said there had been a “realisation” among central bankers that they would need to act.
“There was a tendency to wait and see, but now that fuel prices have been much higher for longer, and you are seeing that reflected in inflation overseas, central banks are responding. And you’ve seen that in the responses … particularly in the US and Europe, and some other countries being on high alert.”
The US Fed lifted rates this week, the first hike since 2023.
Luca Ittimani
AI standards: big datacentres will have to bring renewables unless alternatives have ‘clear benefits’
The Albanese government has detailed the core parts of its AI standards as it consults on the new rules to be brought in early next year.
The commonwealth standards will require large datacentres to offset their energy usage with new renewable projects, unless using state-owned infrastructure would have “clear benefit” keeping the grid more stable and prices lower. That is the compromise reached with the Northern Territory and Queensland governments, which run parts of their energy systems.
Projects will also be required to manage their energy use during peak periods and cover their own energy and water network costs so households don’t face higher prices.
Developers will be required to engage “meaningfully” with communities and First Nations peoples, draw on local suppliers “where possible”, and build away from “sensitive community areas”, such as schools and homes.
The projects will have to support training of construction and operational workers to ensure they don’t worsen Australia’s skills shortages. Efficiency standards for water and energy use are also under consideration.
The government is considering applying those to datacentres with 30-100MW capacity, excluding smaller builds. Datacentres with even higher usage could face “more substantial requirements”.
Ben Doherty
Spy chief Mike Burgess says there has been a widespread failure to tackle antisemitism
Australia’s spy chief has said Australia’s politicians, community leaders and media have not done enough to keep Australia’s Jewish community safe from antisemitism.
The director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Mike Burgess, spoke at length on a podcast hosted by broadcaster Neil Mitchell.
“We still have antisemitism as a problem and that does concern me,” he said:
It’s got to a pretty high, disturbing level.
It raised its ugly head after the 7th of October. It started with threatening, intimidating behaviour and then, a year later, it transitioned to direct targeting of people, places of worship and businesses. And then we saw the death of 15 people. I reckon that’s a bad place for us to be.
Burgess said more needed to be done to prevent conflation of the state of Israel with Jewish people in public and private rhetoric.
It’s OK to be angry at the state of Israel. But how you deal with that anger, it really does matter. I’d like to think there are people who are kind of passionate and they’ve got a right to have that strong view. Are they deliberately wanting to be antisemitic? No, I don’t believe they are, but their actions may well be.
Burgess said there was a widespread failure to counter growing antisemitism.
All of us should have stood up more. Maybe I could have shouted more. Political leaders could have said ‘this is not right’. I mean, a couple of them did do that, but not many of them did. The media should have probably watched how it was reporting.
By all means be critical of the state of Israel but actually say, ‘but we’re not talking about Australians or people of Jewish faith’.
RBA governor paves way for rate hike in September
Patrick Commins
Michele Bullock, the Reserve Bank governor, says “upside risks to inflation appear to be materialising”, setting the central bank on course to deliver a fourth interest rate hike later this month.
Bullock told a parliamentary economics committee:
Inflation is too high. We are focused on getting it back down and making sure that it does not become embedded into price and wage-setting decisions.
The governor said at the RBA board’s last meeting they were worried that inflation would come in hotter than hoped, and it looked like that was happening, despite the slowing economy.
She said:
Global cost pressures have increased – the Middle East conflict, the AI boom and extreme weather events are contributing to upward pressure on a range of energy, agricultural and technology-related prices.
There is little sign of resolution of the Middle East conflict. Oil and related prices have increased sharply again and will add directly to inflation. Through our liaison program, we are hearing that many firms are passing on higher input costs.
The RBA board will meet on 28-29 September, where the “key question” will be whether the three rate hikes earlier this year will be enough to bring inflation back to the 2.5% target “in a reasonable time”. Bullock said:
I recognise that higher interest rates are difficult for Australians with mortgages who are also facing cost-of-living pressures. But reducing inflation is essential. High inflation hurts all Australians and is especially tough on people with lower incomes and those in vulnerable financial positions.
Labor already ‘removing people’ who overstay visas: Thistlethwaite
Matt Thistlethwaite says the Labor government has already been “removing people” who overstay their visas.
Still on that News24 interview, he said:
I know that because I sign off on the removals. We do remove people. But what we’re committing to here is additional resources. There’ll be an additional 100 officers that will work and there’ll be an additional 250 beds in detention centres for those people who overstayed.
In 2015, the previous government changed the system so that mainly people that were detained were those that had committed crimes.
Now, anyone that overstays their visa, if you overstay a tourist visa, you overstay a student visa, you’ll be picked up and you’ll spend a few nights in a detention centre, and we think that that will deter a lot of people from overstaying.
Matt Thistlethwaite says Labor’s migration policy ‘completely different’ from One Nation’s
Matt Thistlethwaite has insisted Labor’s migration policy is “completely different” from One Nation’s, but that deporting people who overstay their visas has “always been our plan”.
Thistlethwaite made the comments while speaking to Peter Stefanovic on News24, with the latter suggesting to the assistant minister for migration that Labor’s policy had been “partly borrowed from One Nation and then rushed once you didn’t get Coalition support”.
Thistlethwaite responded:
No, it’s completely different. If you look at the changes that we’ve made, it’s all about ensuring that we deliver the numbers for migration that we’ve budgeted for in the budget that we put out in May. And secondly, that we’re strengthening the integrity of the system by removing people who don’t have the right to remain in Australia because they’ve overstayed their visa. So, they’re the two major elements.
When it was suggested that “that’s One Nation’s plan”, the assistant minister said:
Well, it’s always been our plan as well.
Labor will ‘look at’ idea of Australia following Canada in seeking closer ties with EU
Federal Labor will “look at the issue” of Australia possibly following Canada’s lead in seeking closer ties with the European Union, assuming it was in Australia’s national interest, the assistant foreign affairs minister, Matt Thistlethwaite, has said.
Thistlethwaite’s comments come after the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said that Canada should become the EU’s first associate member, to which the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, responded: “Canada welcomes this idea.”
You can read more about that here:
Speaking to News24, Thistlethwaite said:
We will look at that issue, but I mean, obviously, I think it needs to be in Australia’s national interest. … We recently signed a free-trade agreement with the European Union. Both of our parliaments are in the process of ratifying that. That will deliver substantial increases and boosts to exports of Australian products into one of the largest consumer markets in the world. So, we made that decision because it was in Australia’s national interest. And we’ll consider this proposal on the same vein.
The woman believed to be the mother of a newborn baby found dead in a bin last month has been arrested, Australian Associated Press reports.
The boy was found naked inside a rubbish bag in an apartment block bin on Harrow Road in Auburn on 31 August.
NSW police issued a plea to find the baby’s mother, saying their main priority was getting her medical care.
More than three weeks later, police said a 24-year-old woman believed to be the infant’s mother had been identified.
She was taken to hospital for assessment and then arrested upon her release last night and taken to Auburn police station.
The woman remains in custody and is expected to be charged, police said.
Auburn Police Area Acting Commander Darren Sly said it was believed the baby had been in the bin for up to 36 hours.
“It’s sad and a horrific set of circumstances,” he told reporters on the day the boy was found.
Luca Ittimani
The Albanese government is considering a “world-leading” ban on smart glasses in its offices and service centres as councils around Australia push the technology out of public spaces over privacy fears.
The government has avoided a sweeping ban on the import of the camera-equipped technology and encouraged individual workplaces to set their own rules.
The public service minister, Katy Gallagher, said on Thursday she had asked the Australian public service for advice on whether the glasses should be prohibited.
Gallagher said:
We need clear and consistent guidance for public servants.
Smart glasses can raise legitimate privacy and security concerns, particularly because of their ability to record and capture information.
Commonwealth-run workplaces range from bureaucrats’ offices to Centrelink service centres and CSIRO laboratories.
Read the full story here:
Microsoft, Telstra, Kmart to contribute to AI in the workplace guide
Labor will meet with executives from Microsoft, Telstra, Kmart and more to develop what the government is calling a “best practice guidance for AI in the workplace”.
The employment and workplace relations minister, Amanda Rishworth, will host an “AI employer roundtable” in Canberra, including executives from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Microsoft, AGL, Telstra, Kmart, Blackmores Group and Ramsay Health Care.
Labor said the roundtable would “draw on the experience” of companies that had already introduced AI into their businesses “with a focus on how businesses can realise the productivity benefits of AI while supporting workers through technological change”.
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