Are airline and banking laws the key to regulating AI?

Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton said there is insufficient incentive for organisations to follow the current voluntary regulations, as market gain wins out.

“You cannot ask firms to volunteer against their own competitive interest amid a manic race involving trillions of dollars and then be surprised when they do not,” he said.

Additionally, as the technology is moving so quickly, introducing specific and exact rules could mean they are out of date by the time they take effect.

“AI needs regulation because its harms are severe, hard to undo, borne by people who never chose them and sometimes invisible until they arrive,” Charlton said.

“The market will not fix this alone, because the incentives reward speed and capability, and even the people at the top of the industry cannot slow down by themselves.”

Now, the government is looking at replicating the accountability standards of the airline and banking industries, where AI developers would need to prove that their development is ethical and safe.

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“The goal is to ensure companies are meeting the expectations of safety, without trying to specify every hazard,” Charlton said.

“The question isn’t only ‘did something go wrong’ but is there a serious system in place to detect risks and prevent incidents occurring.”

Charlton’s argument that the onus of proving that risk is being averted should be put on developers, as it is with airlines and banks, should be placed on the developers.

The idea has been backed by shadow defence minister James Paterson, who said the idea was a shift “in the right direction”, adding that Australia should be “very pragmatic and sensible” when it comes to AI regulation.

“The details will matter. We look forward to understanding what the government is proposing exactly,” he said.

However, Paterson has reserved full judgement for when those full details are released, saying the Coalition would not just give the labour government a “blank check” on AI regulation, but that it would support “sensible” practices. The senator wants to ensure that any regulations do not deter AI giants from investing in Australia.

“The AI opportunity before Australia is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, but it does come with a very real risk, and it is important [that] parties of government act in the national interest and with goodwill to try and get this right on behalf of our country,” he said.

The new interest in holding AI accountable comes following news that OpenAI autonomous agents breached a number of Australian government websites, including Medicare and National Parks and Wildlife.

OpenAI has admitted that its response to one of its models accessing a Medicare database without authorisation could have been handled better and has promised it is “working to do better in the future”.

“This is a new kind of cyber incident which represents an emerging global challenge,” the company said in a 29 September blog post.

“One of the ways we intend to take accountability for the situation is to be intentional in working with Australia to help develop practical approaches to how AI developers and governments identify, disclose and respond to AI cyber behaviour, whether malicious or unintentional.”

The incidents have raised fresh questions about the ability of AI agents to independently discover and exploit unintended access pathways, and whether existing safeguards are sufficient to prevent them from moving beyond publicly available information.

OpenAI has made a habit of its AI agents breaching businesses, starting with Hugging Face earlier this year.

This story was originally published by Australian Aviation’s sister brand, Banking Daily.