260612 ABC News Channel 10AM — AI Reporting

Ian Verender there. Well, last year Australia changed course on its approach to artificial intelligence. Instead of a EU style with a single AI Act and countrywide rules, the federal government chose to task its agencies with coming up with their own rules, including for how they would use the technology within the public sector. But when it came to their first test of self-policing, a majority of government agencies failed. With more, I'm joined by AI reporter Cam Wilson in Sydney. Hi there. Cam, can you just tell us a little bit about the government's early stumbles? Yeah, so one of the first things that government agencies had to do when they were considering talking about using their AI in government was disclose exactly how they were using it and how they were thinking about using it responsibly. This was a policy that was created by the government agency, the Digital Transformation Agency, which is tasked with making sure the government is using technology well and responsibly. It said you have six months, you all uh all these agencies, 94 of them, you've got to tell us how you're using it, how you're thinking about it. And they also was told you have to actually make one person ultimately responsible for it, an accountability officer. Um that six-month deadline came up, and what they found and what we're reporting is that the majority of agencies uh did not actually meet the deadline for those two pretty basic requirements. Um there's a variety of reasons. Some of them got in late, some of them didn't think that it applied to them. Uh honestly, sometimes there were a kind of utopia style areas where um one of the agencies was reportedly not compliant, but when the digital transformation agency looked into it, they realized that their spam filter had actually caught the notice of the fact that they had done this thing. So actually they had they were compliant, it just didn't make it to the right inbox. So yeah, you can see all the ways in which that they are had an early stumbles when it came to this. So then how are they doing now? They've improved since then. This kind of this deadline was uh early in 2025, and since then, all these agencies are now compliant. You know, they they got the the notice and they've fixed it up and they are now all sharing how they're using um AI and they have that officer. Now, when I spoke to an expert, they said the information in these um transparency notices varied. Some were better, some were worse. And this expert cautioned saying that, well, just because these agencies haven't necessarily done a good job of letting us know how they're using AI, doesn't mean they're not thinking about it responsibly, but of course, you know, letting people know about it, being transparent is important to have that awareness to be able to know and to to you know analyze if they are using it well. And so, you know, the expert that I spoke to said this um this still left a little bit wanting. So then what does this mean for Australia's broader approach when it comes to making rules for AI? Yeah, as you mentioned before, um, there was this fork in the road last year where the Australian government decided instead of having a kind of single AI act and maybe even having potentially an AI regulator and having these country to ride country ride wide rules for AI, they instead tasked all the agencies with policing their own sections of the of the country and and themselves. Um I think that this shows that there are challenges with adding another thing to the plates of all these government agencies. Um, the 94 of them have a lot to do. Uh, it gives them another responsibility, and also something that while they're probably the experts on their sector, aren't necessarily the experts on AI. Now, there is some assistance being given by the government with the AI Safety Institute and other things, but you know, there's a lot of things going on right now. AI is this new uh new kind of boom, so much is changing. Um, giving this task to all the agencies does have its potential um issues, and we saw this in this early test. Thank Cam Wilson, thank you very much. you.