Digital Rights Watch welcomes the opportunity to provide comment to the committee’s inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres.
For the sake of brevity, in this submission we have focused on data centres rather than the AI systems and products that run inside them.
While there may be some interesting and useful developments from the AI industry, we are concerned with the unprofitable capital-led growth of the industry, the data-extractive nature of the hyperscale corporations driving it, and the way in which expected benefits and costs are distributed.
Our research in AI shows us that Australia is underprepared for the societal issues that are already being caused by AI hyperscalers, let alone those that are to come.
We welcome the committee’s scrutiny into the industry’s claims of benefits, and offer some analysis of current and potential issues of large-scale AI rollout in Australia. If it would be useful to the committee, we are happy to provide further evidence and clarity.