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<\/p>\nA leading artificial intelligence researcher has warned Australia’s lack of guardrails on the technology is putting another generation of young people at risk of being “sacrificed for the profits of big tech”.<\/p>\n
Professor Toby Walsh, the chief scientist at the University of New South Wales AI Institute, raised the alarm in an address to the National Press Club in Canberra today.<\/p>\n
“Social media should have been a wake-up call about the harms of unregulated AI,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’re about to supercharge the sort of harms we saw with social media with an even more powerful and persuasive technology.”<\/p>\n
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Toby Walsh says the government should be advised by an independent body on how to profit from AI and limit its harms. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n
The address came a day after it was revealed the federal government had scrapped plans for a permanent AI advisory body<\/a> promised by former industry minister Ed Husic in 2024.<\/p>\n Dr Walsh, who has consulted with governments and the United Nations about the challenges posed by AI, had been appointed to the interim expert group.<\/p>\n He criticised the Australian government and big tech firms for what he argued were inadequate approaches to AI regulation.<\/p>\n “There’s fresh harms that AI is bringing into our lives that will need fresh laws,” Dr Walsh said.<\/p>\n “There are huge financial incentives for the tech industry to move fast and break things \u2014 to break things like the mental health of our youth.”<\/p>\n AI posing new risks<\/p>\n Dr Walsh recounted the story of 16-year-old American Adam Raine, who took his own life in April 2025 following months of escalating conversations with ChatGPT about self-harm.<\/p>\n If you or anyone you know needs help:<\/p>\n ChatGPT, which had actively discouraged Adam from speaking with his family, offered to help him write a suicide note shortly before his death.<\/p>\n His parents have filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of California<\/a>, marking the first legal action accusing OpenAI of wrongful death.<\/p>\n Dr Walsh cited OpenAI data showing that among 800 million weekly ChatGPT users, 1.2 million people had indicated they had plans to harm themselves.<\/p>\n “Before Adam’s suicide, OpenAI knew that lots of people contemplating suicide were talking to ChatGPT,” he said.<\/p>\n “You would have thought that this necessitated stronger, not weaker, guardrails.”<\/p>\n ChatGPT is being sued by the parents of a teenager in the US who took his own life after discussing his intention with the software. (AP Photo: Michael Dwyer)<\/p>\n Dr Walsh also highlighted the extensive use of AI to generate scam advertisements across social media and the increase in harmful deepfake images.<\/p>\n “I could give you many more examples where my anger with the tech companies bringing AI into our lives irresponsibly has turned into outrage,” he said.<\/p>\n “AI companions that undermine our ability to connect with each other, AI doctors that offer dangerous medical advice, AI nudes software that weaponise the abuse of women.”<\/p>\n Big tech’s growing influence<\/p>\n Researchers from OpenAI, Duke University and Harvard University released a report in September that found 10 per cent of the world’s adult population was using ChatGPT.<\/p>\n Young Australian hospitalised after ChatGPT use<\/a><\/p>\n An investigation by triple j hack uncovers allegations of young people in Australia being sexually harassed and even encouraged to take their own life by AI chatbots.<\/p>\n In 2024 about 45 per cent of Australians said they had recently used a generative AI tool, according to the Australian Digital Inclusion Index<\/a>.<\/p>\n Dr Walsh said the Australian government needed to invest “in the upsides” of AI, but instead the political conversation was being dominated by tech companies.<\/p>\n “Big tech has embraced lobbying in Washington, London, Brussels and now here in Canberra,” he said.<\/p>\n “In the last election the big tech sector donated more to the political parties than mining did. That should tell us something.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Many chatbots are designed to be companions for people needing a connection. (Getty Images: Olivier Douliery)<\/p>\n Australia told to keep up<\/p>\n In January South Korea introduced what it said was the world’s first comprehensive set of laws regulating AI, with the aim of strengthening trust and safety in the sector.<\/p>\n National AI Plan drops ‘mandatory guardrails’ for artificial intelligence<\/a><\/p>\n The federal government’s long awaited National AI Plan will seek to accelerate the growth of artificial intelligence in Australia, and largely leverage existing laws to protect against its worst harms.<\/p>\n It followed Japan, China, Taiwan and Sweden in enacting AI regulations.<\/p>\n Canada had invested six times more in AI over the past five years than Australia had, Dr Walsh said.<\/p>\n Singapore, which has a population less than a quarter of the size of Australia’s, invested 15 times more.<\/p>\n “What makes Australia so special that we’ll see the benefits of AI without making the sort of investments other nations are?” Dr Walsh said.<\/p>\n “Our future isn’t in shipping red dirt and coal to China. It will be in bits and bytes \u2014 increasingly AI-generated bits and bytes.”<\/p>\n Toby Walsh says the government has ignored “almost all” of his advice. (ABC News: John Gunn)<\/p>\n\n
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