MARTIN SOONG, HOST: So as global tech giants rush to introduce new generative artificial intelligence, or AI, tools, the Australian government is mulling a move to ban high-risk AI use to prevent misuse and also abuse of things like deep throats and also algorithmic bias arguing that there is a need for appropriate guardrails to ensure that the safe – to ensure the safe and responsible use of AI. 

For more on this, let’s bring in Ed Husic. He’s Australia’s Minister for Industry and Science spearheading the move in Singapore on an official visit and joins us around the desk here at the Singapore Exchange. Minister, good morning. Welcome. Great to have you on the show and to see you. 

ED HUSIC, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND SCIENCE: Thanks. 

MARTIN SOONG: So these guardrails that I was just talking about, do they need to be international? 

ED HUSIC: I think if I can just make this initial point – from our perspective we recognise the huge economic and social benefit that AI has brought. It’s been really important particularly in tough times. We all lived through a pandemic where we know that the ability to apply AI in a way to find, for instance, new vaccines, that was literally a lifesaver. We know in the Australian context it can add a lot to our GDP, so we want to get the best of AI while also thinking about how to manage risk. 

So from our perspective what we’ve been looking at is introducing a risk- based framework – low, medium, high. We’re consulting with people right now in the Australian context around that. And I think there’s a balancing act about where we can work with other countries to harmonise our legislative approach. But where there are clearly differences of take but more localised as well to confirm or to satisfy local desire about putting those type of guardrails in. 

So it's not a heavy-handed approach. It will look at the high-risk areas and determine with industry and others what’s got to be done. But we want to get that balance right. It is an important technology. Clearly people have seen the leaps and bounds especially around generative AI that’s occurred and want to know that we get that balance right, as I said. 

MARTIN SOONG: Seems like regulation over AI going on?  

ED HUSIC: Well, it’s about identifying – I think where there’s low or medium risk, I think a lot of that can already be managed in many respects by either the legislation – we’ve got about 12 different portfolios that have anticipated the role or the intersection with AI. But where it’s higher, we’ll potentially need to consider what we do around that. Automated decision-making is probably the more – the area that springs to mind and about how companies set up and even governments in many respects automated decision-making off an AI base and thinking that through is really important. 

MARTIN SOONG: You know, so far generative AI, ChatGPT etcetera, I mean, the uses and also the misuses or failures have been pretty innocuous if not funny, right? But just a couple of days ago we were talking to a couple of experts about how the real cutting-edge area right now is military applications, let’s say drones which obviously are in use already and allowing them the ability to make decisions on their own on the battlefield in what’s known as the kill chain – in other words, taking the human element out of it. What is Australia’s take on this, because this is – not a lot of people talk about it, but that is really at the forefront of the cutting edge of AI right now. 

ED HUSIC: So from this point of view, I have broader responsibility from the civil sense, and clearly in different countries defence ministers will be taking that on board. And I think recently the UN Security Council, from the top of my head, was actively – they recently met to consider some of the very points that you raise. It is a really – and I’ve watched technology as a parliamentarian for the entire time – over 10 years – and it is a really vexed question that you pose because at the same time you don’t want to put people in the way, in harm’s way, but there’s obviously the other thought dimension to this around having automated decision-making that may act in a way that runs counter to the expectations of how these exercises would work. 

So getting, again, balance, important there. It’s not necessarily in the frame of what we’re doing right now and the consultations we’re undertaking. It’s not really at the heart of that. But there is active consideration not just in Australia but the world over about how to manage the intersection of technology and people when it comes to those very decisions – literally life and death decisions. 

But I think what’s exercised the public’s mind not just in Australia but elsewhere is whether or not the technology gets ahead of itself, what are the switches that exist to be able to, you know, suspend the operation of AI potentially in a way when people get concerned that things may be going ahead of what was the expectation of people about the way the technology would operate. And this is a really hard question, and I don’t pretend that I think we will necessarily get a simple snap-of-the-fingers answer about that. 

But what’s really important when it comes to technology, I think the way people really like what technology has done to their lives and having seen the best part over the last decade or so of how it operates, people have been developing more of a sense of, “Okay, we think governments should get their head around where technology is headed and shape up modern laws for modern tech.” And that’s really what we are trying to think of as a jurisdiction. 

MARTIN SOONG: And, Minister, this leg of your trip in Singapore has probably got most of the meetings and discussions being about AI? 

ED HUSIC: I am looking forward to meeting with Minister Teo here in Singapore. I have huge regard in terms of Singapore – and I’ve just been – I’ve just come here from Indonesia. When you look at the strengths Singapore has and you look at Indonesia’s economy – about 200 million internet users in that market – there’s a lot to be said about us – the three countries – working closer together wherever we can. And so I’m keen for that to occur. And we’ve got some big ambitions in our own market. 

MARTIN SOONG: EVs and EV batteries? 

ED HUSIC: Yes. Well, I mean, Indonesia, in particular, are very focused on that. And having met with Coordinating Minister Luhut, and this meeting came about – actually the genesis came about on the floor of the meeting of the Australian Prime Minister with the Indonesian President just in early July. And so, we are talking about how we can both combine our relative strengths. Indonesia possesses huge stores of nickel. We’ve got lithium. How we work together on that, really important. Other emerging battery technologies will be critical too – it’s not just lithium. There are others – radium is starting to make a run as well and will be important in stationery energy storage as opposed to transport-based options with what lithium does for EVs. 

So this is really – from our point of view we’re trying to get our act together. I’m responsible for the development of a national battery strategy to lever off our resources. And underpinning it all, Marty, from our country’s perspective, we’ve made a lot of money from mining and we still will do that. For a lot of countries now the focus longer term is value add – what do we do with the resources that we have and apply them, particularly in this arena where we need to bring emissions down, open up economic opportunity, huge advantages there. 

MARTIN SOONG: So it sounds very much like the Indonesian approach. They’ve been for a long time trying to stop getting the rest of the world, including foreign investors, to look at them as just basically a couple of giant mines in the ground. They want to keep more value adding at home, which is something Oz wants to do more of as well. 

ED HUSIC: Yes, and great friends can share great ambition like that. It’s a shared ambition between our countries to do that. But that’s been also something that Singapore has thought deeply longer term about its economy. That’s why you’ve got very strong, for example, FinTech here, very strong leveraging off Singapore’s strengths in financial services. And thinking through to – and the other thing I admire about Singapore is its use of technology within government too and being able to think through those things, really important. I’ll be meeting with Minister Gan, the Minister for Trade and Industry here, as well, talking through how we can work together. And, again, it’s about the evolution of our economies and thinking longer term about where that’s got to head. Because that type of activity and trying to reshape parts of the economy, especially coming out of the pandemic, it takes a lot of thinking and a lot of acting over a period of time. 

MARTIN SOONG: It has to be considered. Understood. Minister, we’re just out of time. Safe travels. 

ED HUSIC: Thank you. 

MARTIN SOONG: Great to have you on the show. Appreciate it very much. Hope to see you again very soon. 

ED HUSIC: Terrific to be here. Thanks for your time. 

MARTIN SOONG: The pleasure is ours. We’ve been talking to Ed Husic, Australia’s Minister for Industry and Science live around the desk on SGX.