Issues Paper Submission - Positioning Australia as a Leader in Digital Economy Regulation: Automated Decision-making and AI Regulation

Our submission responds to the Issues Paper that addresses the key objective to build trustworthiness in new technologies and regulatory frameworks that govern new technologies. We see this as the critical pillar under the Commonwealth’s Digital Economy Strategy to establish the ‘right foundations to grow the digital economy’. In our view, many of the questions raised in the Issues Paper should be answered from a position that prioritises trustworthy design and deployment of AI and ADM. By targeting regulation of AI and ADM to ensure these new technologies are perceived as trustworthy by the general public, this overarching regulatory approach will assist to:

• overcome regulatory barriers by ensuring that AI and ADM are seen to be trustworthy, particularly in relation to how AI and ADM developers articulate how they are designing and developing trustworthy applications of technology. Building in regulatory components of trustworthiness at the uptake of new technologies will enhance public acceptance and thus allow the potential for new technologies to be realised whilst maintaining necessary legal requirements;
• build a technologically neutral approach to AI and ADM regulation and will enhance public security and confidence in these new technologies while ensuring that regulation remains legally fit-for-purpose and current;
• identify existing and emerging risks of adopting AI and ADM, particularly a black box approach to using automated decision-making that renders such decision-making challenging to explain; and
• ameliorate the adverse implications of automated decision-making on vulnerable groups