Law Council of Australia

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Introducing Mandatory Guardrails for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in High-risk Settings

25 October 2024

On 9 October 2024, the Law Council provided a submission to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources in response to its Proposals Paper, titled Introducing mandatory guardrails for AI in high-risk settings.

Our submission was informed by contributions from the Law Institute of Victoria, the Law Society of New South Wales, and the Queensland Law Society, in addition to the Law Council’s Futures Committee and Business Law Section.

The Proposals Paper canvassed various approaches to AI regulation across other jurisdictions and offered several potential pathways forward for legislating the use of AI in high-risk settings, and the use of general-purpose AI in Australia, underpinned by proposed mandatory guardrails that closely mirror the existing Voluntary AI Safety Standards.

In our submission, we emphasised that it is critical that any regulatory framework adopted in Australia is flexible and scalable to future technological change, and so will allow for sufficient innovation, while maintaining appropriate guardrails. We submitted that, given the pace of technological change and the economy-wide embrace of AI (albeit in many cases still being tested), mandatory guardrails applying across the AI supply chain and throughout the AI lifecycle could be effective to reduce the likelihood of harms, rather than a comprehensive AI-specific Act at this early stage.

We also acknowledged that that there is merit in limiting specific AI-related laws to high-risk and general-purpose AI use cases, until a further, more meaningful review can be undertaken, based on a growing body of evidence and global AI use case examples.

The Law Council looks forward to continuing to engage with the Government as it continues to explore appropriate policy responses to the use of AI in Australia. We thank our Constituent Bodies, Sections and Advisory Committees for their ongoing guidance and expertise in this rapidly developing area that is of clear significance to the legal profession.

Last Updated on 23/10/2024

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