New independent council launches to put Australia at the table on frontier AI

A new independent body has launched today aimed at helping Australia make informed decisions on the development of Artificial Intelligence in the national interest.

The Australian Council on AI Strategy (ACAIS) has been established to help Australia become a full participant in the frontier AI ecosystem, so that Australians share in the benefits of frontier AI and its risks are managed well.

ACAIS connects people and organisations shaping Australia's AI decisions with the world's best analysis on frontier AI, helping ensure Australia's choices about what we build, adopt, regulate and turn down, are based on the national interest.

ACAIS draws together a founding group of senior figures from Australian government, business and international AI policy, including its inaugural CEO, Anna-Maria Arabia OAM.

Launching the organisation, Ms Arabia said Australia needed a broader and more informed debate about the choices and long-term impact of AI policy decisions.

“Australia is making consequential decisions about AI on a compressed timetable. Those decisions deserve the best evidence and analysis available, and much of it currently sits offshore,” said Ms Arabia.

“We need the people making these decisions to be informed by those working at the frontier of AI, the people analysing the technology, the independent evaluators testing it, and the forecasters modelling where it's going next. ACAIS has been established to help make those connections and to provide that advice.

“Australia and Australians will share in the benefits of frontier AI, and manage its risks, only if Australia is a full participant in the frontier AI ecosystem rather than a bystander. Having a stake in the technology, including hosting frontier AI training here, is the starting point for safety standards and policy on Australia’s terms.

“Participation is the starting point, not the finish line. Landing frontier AI here does not of itself deliver benefits. That takes sustained work across copyright, energy, land, security, skills and local industry, grounded in evidence and dialogue, and Australia has a better chance of getting it right if it helps develop the technology rather than only importing it.

“Democratic middle powers like Australia have a real opportunity to build a coalition on AI safety and global governance. Australia has done this before, in founding and chairing the Australia Group. We can do it again on AI, but only if we are inside the tent.

Today, in launching the new organisation, ACAIS has released its submission to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, which calls for Australia to move with urgency to secure a share of frontier AI training onshore, resolve the copyright impasse holding it back, and create the levers Australia needs to help write the rules for frontier AI development.

The submission argues “Australia has been dealt an extraordinary hand in attracting frontier AI training, but it will not play itself. Australian governments must move with urgency to take advantage of this window of opportunity and give form to the distinctive contribution Australia can make to shaping frontier AI, on Australia’s terms and in a way that shares the benefits of AI development and deployment.”

It continues; [Australia] “should negotiate conditions and requirements that serve our national and global interest before it enters into a deal with frontier AI labs to host training compute in Australia. This should include strengthened safety measures (including mandatory incident reporting; security standards for AI data centres; strengthened evaluation; development of verification technologies to support international governance; access to compute for safety research); upskilling of the local AI R&D ecosystem; and a powerful seat at the international governance table.”

Ms Arabia said “Australia can help write the rules on the future with AI or we can let others write them for us – that is the choice facing the nation and the consequences of that choice are intergenerational. We have a narrow window to decide which, and robust evidence needs to be in front of the people making those decisions.”

“We will help to widen the national conversation about what full participation in frontier AI requires of Australia and what it offers, so that Australia shapes this technology as a participant rather than watching it arrive as a bystander that carries the risks without a voice.”

ACAIS’s submission to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence today makes that clear and is available in full on its website www.acais.au.

Media contact

Michael Chaitow – 0432 629 342

ACAIS CEO

Anna-Maria Arabia OAM is a strategic leader with over 25 years' experience at the intersection of policy, research, science and technology, government, diplomacy and global affairs. She was previously CEO of the Australian Academy of Science for a decade where she shaped national decision-making, advanced science diplomacy from the Asia-Pacific to the UN, and ensured science and technology remained influential in Australia's most consequential policy debates. A former neuroscientist, her career spans the public service, politics, senior executive leadership, whilst serving on a number of boards. She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia and the Order of the Star of Italy for her contributions to science and society.

ACAIS is led by Chief Executive Officer Anna-Maria Arabia OAM and governed by a Board of Directors chaired by Lin Hatfield-Dodds. Its first public work is a submission to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, published today.