A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry has been created to examine the use of artificial intelligence in the state, with senior members of the government and opposition increasingly concerned by the technology.
The wide-ranging inquiry, which will be conducted by the Premier and Finance Committee, was approved by NSW Parliament on Wednesday following broad support from all sides of state politics.
It is the second parliamentary inquiry into AI to be opened across Australia in five weeks and follows the creation of a federal Parliament probe into the use of generative AI in school and higher education last month.
Legalise Cannabis Party MP Jeremy Buckingham, who chairs the committee, told InnovationAus.com the inquiry was opened after Parliament reached consensus on the issue.
“I talked to a number of MPs from different parties, and they were of the view that this was, for a number of different reasons, an issue that the Parliament really needed to address,” he said.
Former minister Victor Dominello had called for an inquiry into AI before his retirement this year, with another committee endorsing the proposal for inquiry in the first term of the new government.
The October 2022 recommendation came a full month before the arrival of ChatGPT, which kicked off the generative AI arms race between OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and other emerging players.
Despite moves by the former minister, Mr Buckingham said the inquiry had emerged organically, and that he only discovered that Mr Dominello had sought to initiate an inquiry after.
At least one of the catalysts for the inquiry is the automatic removal of Legalise Cannabis Party social media posts by Meta, Twitter and Google.
“There was an explicit restriction on our capacity to communicate through some of the most important channels that now exist, which impacts us in a big way, but also impacts democracy in a small way,” he said.
According to the terms of reference, the inquiry will consider the “current and future extent, nature and impact of AI in NSW”, including on the labour market.
“We really do want to look at the impact of AI on the labor market, the types of jobs, whether the jobs will be there, how business [and] unions are going to deal with this,” Mr Buckingham said.
The impact of AI on human rights and democratic institutions, as well as whether current laws regarding AI that regulate privacy, data security and anti-discrimination, will also be canvassed.
“We also want to look at, in terms of civil liberties, how do we protect our data? Who owns our data? How is our data being used?”
Although the inquiry terms do not extend to the use of facial recognition, as envisaged by Mr Dominello, Mr Buckingham said there would be some natural overlap, with policing an area of concern.
The inquiry will also investigate the “effectiveness and enforcement of Commonwealth and NSW laws and regulations regarding AI”, and measures being adopted overseas to regulate and adapt to AI.
Mr Buckingham said the committee was keen to hear from technology companies like IBM, Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI and Google, as well as academics, about the “opportunities and threats” of AI.
“We don’t have a reporting date because we don’t know what we don’t know. We’re going to find that out,” he said.
Submissions to the inquiry will close October 2o 2023.
