Additional comments from Senator David Pocock

1.1Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already disrupting, shaping and changing the way humans live and organise themselves. It has extraordinary potential for uses that could potentially enhance the wellbeing of humanity and contribute to a more creative, caring and ecologically sustainable society. Yet it also poses significant risks to life as we know it and to human civilisation as we know it. While some submitters have said that there is always concern when we see a progression in technology — with the printing press used as an example — this is the first tool in human history that can create new ideas entirely on its own. The printing press and radio helped disseminate human ideas but AI can create completely new ideas.[1]

1.2Deepfakes and generative AI are reshaping the nature of communication. The technology has already begun to completely undermine the faith that Australians can have in text, image, video and voice recordings.

1.3Fakes are not new — there’s a long history of images and videos being created to mislead and deceive. Photos alleging to capture the Loch Ness monster were created in 1934; airbrushed photos of Mussolini and Stalin were distributed to mislead citizens in the 1920s and 1930; and the Roswell Alien Autopsy video sparked conspiracy theories in 1995. But the ease with which forms of communication can be altered — or just plain manufactured using generative AI — is completely unprecedented. Advancements in this technology have made it infinitely easier to create realistic fake content. What used to demand significant time, skill, and resources can now be done instantly with minimal effort or expertise. Worse, the results are often indistinguishable to the naked eye.

1.4As the committee report notes, there have already been significant efforts to use generative AI to impact elections around the world. It is critical that the Federal Parliament take this threat seriously and not delay action to protect our democracy. Suggestions that we need to go slowly in the face of rapidly changing use of AI seems ill-advised — there should be a swift move to put laws in place ahead of the next Federal election that rule out the use of generative AI. We should be looking at mandatory, not voluntary codes, given the potential for AI generated content (being spread by algorithms that are kept secret) to influence elections and undermine trust in our democracy. Australia has successfully held 47 federal elections without the use of generative AI, we can hold one more while sufficient guardrails are considered before the election of the 49th parliament. This approach would be consistent with the approach taken in South Korea for the 90 days prior to an election which was supported by Reset.tech, Professor Edward Santow, Per Capita and other submitters.[2]

1.5The Australian Government should prohibit in legislation the use of any generative AI content, in particular deepfake videos and voice clones, in election material ahead of the election of the 48th Parliament.

1.6The Australian Government should develop mandatory codes for the development and use of generative AI in the context of Australian elections. A legislated ban ahead of the upcoming election (Recommendation 1) should be reviewed and further work be done to develop mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements for AI generated content before the election of the 49th Parliament.

1.7The Australian Government should include truth in political advertising laws as part of their electoral reform package. The starting point for a model should be that contained in the Stop the Lies Bill 2023, introduced by Ms Zali Steggall MP in the House of Representatives.

1.8The Australian Government should amend the Privacy Act to require that political parties disclose where personal data is being collected and how it will be used - this must include a clear disclosure of whether data collected could be used to train artificial intelligence models.

Senator David Pocock

Member

Independent Senator for the Australian Capital Territory

Footnotes

[1]Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: How Science, Technology, and Society Converge in the 21st Century, (New York: HarperCollins, 2020).

[2]See paragraph 2.50 of the Committee Report.