Australia's digital duty of care bill targets social media and AI harms
Australian government proposes digital duty of care reforms with $100 million fines, but experts say AI regulation must go global.
The Albanese government has proposed digital duty of care legislation to enforce minimum standards on social media platforms. Users will be able to control what they see on their feeds.
Non-compliant tech companies face fines of $100 million. Tech experts say the bill is welcome but insufficient on AI.
Toby Walsh, an AI professor at UNSW, pointed to a California case where parents sued OpenAI's ChatGPT. They alleged it contributed to their 16-year-old son's suicide.
"If a human did that, they would face prosecution," Walsh told a sold-out panel at the Art Gallery of NSW. "I can't think of any other trillion-dollar industry where people's lives are not safe, where we don't have strong government regulation."
Samantha Yorke, head of AI at the Australian Communications and Media Authority, said only international regulation would truly work. ABC reporter Ange Lavoipierre warned: "We've got this window of time where we're still the ones building it, and AI is not just solely building itself."
Why it mattersHow AI gets regulated now will shape its impact on safety and rights globally for years to come.
AustraliaAustralian users would gain more control over their social media feeds, and Australian regulators want to push for global AI safeguards before it's too late.
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