Artificial intelligence: our future

Failure to be prepared will risk a decline in many aspects of our Australian way of life and society. 

"We need to adopt and adapt all of the world’s emerging technologies relevant to Australia’s needs". 

Artificial intelligence will be part of the mix. It’s early days – AI today is basically machine learning, which is good at recognising patterns for which the statistics don’t change with time, but where the mathematical relationships between cause and effect are well hidden. 

It is not 'intelligence' in the sense that it is capable of human thought strategies. However, even pattern recognition may create cause for concern. 

Facial recognition technology, for example, can have legitimate uses in identifying perpetrators of crime. But used to excess, it can become an intrusive method of social control, damaging the very civil liberties it was supposedly deployed to protect.

AI will be part of the future of a prosperous Australia. But society will also require rules within which AI functions."