We are crusading against things that would keep us safe – like data centres

October 4, 2026 — 2:00am

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As enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith archly observed in a text that has shaped economic thinking ever since: “people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices”. It’s called colluding, in the modern argot, but I rather like Smith’s description of the practice as a “conspiracy against the public”.

Likewise when the bosses of the AI companies, to date the most libertarian of tech bros, suddenly throw themselves at the feet of world leaders, begging to be put in chains, Smith might raise an eyebrow. Captains of industry seldom ask to be regulated, except as a conspiracy against their competitors.

Of course, they’re not going to say that. And there’s a sophisticated public relations campaign under way to persuade the general public that regulation is in their best interests. It’s even deployed the Australian government, right up to our prime minister, to achieve its goals.

Many observers have now noted that the sudden wave of concern over the dangers of artificial intelligence coincided with major US AI companies Anthropic and OpenAI planning to make their public debuts on the sharemarket. The timing of revelations that some gated (but not private) material on Medicare had been accessed by OpenAI to coincide with Anthony Albanese’s appearance at the UN was just too cute for some.

The prime minister rejected assertions that he’d held back the information in order to make a........

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