Follow the day’s news live
-
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
The Australian Electoral Commissioner, Jeff Pope, has said people getting their information about voting in Australia from AI chatbots such as ChatGPT or Claude is an “emerging concern”, and has forced the commission to overhaul its website to attract bots looking for the correct information.
Speaking at a hearing of the joint standing committee on artificial intelligence on Wednesday night, Pope said it was “dangerous” to rely on social media platforms or AI tools as “your only source of research when it comes to forming an opinion around voting” and was something the AEC was working to educate the public on.
We’re undertaking significant investment at the moment in modernising our web page so that AI tools actually pull factual information from our web page and reflect that back to the voter, rather than pulling … from a variety of other resources which may or may not be correct.
I can understand that Don is under a lot of pressure, because there are barely any friends of his dud European deal. I am happy to meet with Don anytime, but he ended our discussion, not me.
I have written to Don with practical suggestions about how the deal can be improved and I remain open to discuss my concerns at any time.
