Australia’s AI Safety Institute doesn’t have the level of resourcing “to be taken seriously” internationally, artificial intelligence experts have told a parliamentary inquiry.
AI Researchers Janet Egan and Dr Sam Winter-Levy are among 16 witnesses to appear before the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence on Friday as it continues to investigate risks and benefits of an AI roll out Down Under.
Both told the inquiry that by helping frontier companies build out their commute in Australia would be a “bargaining chip” for “influence and access”.
However, Ms Egan — a former staffer in the Prime Minister’s office who now works as an AI researcher in Washington D.C —warned Australia needed to step up its government capacity.
“I don’t think Australia’s AI Safety Institute is currently resourced enough to be taken seriously on the international stage,” she said.
“It also has an incredibly broad remit, providing AI advice to the entire government.
“The $7.5 million figure is nothing compared to what other countries are throwing at this.
“Other countries are talking about ‘well, we probably need a lot more investment in government capacity’.
“It gives you the situational awareness to understand what’s happening, it gives you the ability to work on these unsolved critical questions around alignment and control.
“It does not have the resources to currently be taken seriously.”
It comes after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last month revealed that a rogue OpenAI agent autonomously “hacked” into the Services Australia website to access Medicare statistics.
Ms Egan said while the future of AI is “highly uncertain”, Australia should expand its ability to protect citizens as the technology develops.
She said it would benefit in terms of access to frontier models but also give it flexibility and resources to deal with workforce disruptions which seem inevitable.
“I think if Australia builds out large-scale AI infrastructure, they have this resource into the future that gives them some influence over and leverage over these companies,” she said, appearing in a personal capacity.
“Ensuring we have access to the most frontier AI models, we will have a much greater chance of being able to negotiate if AI companies are reliant on our jurisdiction to develop these capabilities.
“The other aspect of sovereignty that I think is enhanced by hosting large-scale train compute in Australia is the ability to just get much deeper partnerships with leading U.S AI companies.”
Dr Winter-Levy, who appeared in his personal capacity but works with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said while Australia only has a short time to capitalise, it needs to work on the social licence of AI development.
“Compute is becoming a strategic asset, valuable both for the economic returns it brings, but also as a source of technological and geopolitical leverage,” he said.
“Australia does need to move with urgency, and that requires removing some of the obstacles that slow projects down domestically.
“Like permitting backlogs, grid connection use, transmission bottlenecks.
“If countries like Australia can unlock large-scale compute sites, they can use that to bargain for frontier access with the US labs.
“So, which countries can capture these benefits depends above all on ‘time to power’.
“By our estimates, at the moment, Australia moves significantly slower than the United States at building data centres.
“But, to be clear, speed requires a social license to operate, which depends on transparent deals and visible guaranteed benefits of those communities.
“Governments should not spend public funds on this industry through energy subsidies or tax cuts.
“They should consider creating fast-track review processes for projects that meet certain criteria, such as use of clean energy, investment in local communities, or past commitments.
“And as long as governments can actually shorten the approval timelines, they have a lot of flexibility to shape the bargains they strike with data centre developers.”
Dr Winter-Levy said Australia was uniquely positioned due to its stable security environment and abundant land and solar, but warned there were also places like the Gulf States who are scrambling to capture some of the build-out.
“Countries that contribute real value to the build-out through faster permitting, abundant land, and clean power will have the most leverage to shape the future of AI,” he said.
The other witnesses set to appear include Amazon Australia, Tech Council of Australia, Digital Economy Council of Australia, Australian Strategic Policy Institute and The Australia Institute among others.
Safe Work Australia and Centre for Future Work will also appear late on Friday and will likely discuss the disruption to the workforce.