Albanese has finally realised that AI might not be our friend

July 24, 2026 — 5:00am

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The Albanese government is finding its voice on technology. It has taken a curious path to get to this point, and on AI it has been led to it. But having been so led, it now celebrates leading the world. “Australia will be the first country in the world to bring these issues into a single, national framework,” the prime minister said last week, announcing new national standards for anyone wanting to build AI data centres here. These standards began life in March as environmental “expectations”, the government curiously refusing to give them the force of law. Now they will be legislated.

This legislation is best seen as one of a pair, its sibling being the government’s teen social media ban. Albanese proudly boasts that “more than 20 nations have implemented or are implementing social media age restrictions of their own”, following his government’s lead. The success of the policy is, at this point, far from assured, but the government is clearly convinced its message resonates. It symbolises the idea that we have the power to leash the rapacious effects of the technology that has so quickly taken over our lives.

That itself is a watershed notion, a new public mood that is less inclined than previously to assume technology always makes life better. Social media benefited from that assumption, doing all kinds of damage along the way. The truth is, it’s probably too far gone. But “imagine if the world had acted a decade ago”, mused Albanese. “That is the opportunity –........

© Brisbane Times