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Australia Must Act on AI Risks Now
To realise AI’s immense benefits, we must first confront its escalating risks—starting now.
Published 24 March 2025
The next government will shape whether AI becomes a powerful force for good or causes catastrophic harm. Australia needs swift and globally coordinated action to address the risks of AI so Australians can fully seize its opportunities.
We can fly with confidence because we know airlines are subject to robust safety standards—the same should be true for AI.
Therefore, we call on the Australian Government to:
- Deliver on its commitments by creating an Australian AI Safety Institute. While massive investments are accelerating AI capabilities, there is minimal funding dedicated to understanding and addressing its risks. We need independent technical expertise within government to join global AI risk research, and help ensure regulation and policy meet Australia's needs.
- Introduce an Australian AI Act that imposes mandatory guardrails on AI developers and deployers. The Act should ensure that powerful AI systems meet robust safety standards and clarify liability for developers and deployers.
AI development is already rapid, can be unexpected, and will have significant consequences for Australians. AI stands to fundamentally transform our society, economy, and democracy – for better or worse. Australians expect our government to take the widespread implications of AI seriously, to work with the global community to ensure AI is well governed, and to be adaptable in protecting us from AI risks while enabling us to realise its benefits.
We, the undersigned, call on the Australian Government to make AI safe before it's too late.
Signatories
Note: Signatories endorse only the core letter text. Footnotes and additional content may not represent their views.
Prof Huw Price
University of Cambridge
Emeritus Bertrand Russell Professor & Emeritus Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge
Co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and former Academic Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge
Dr. Toby Ord
Oxford University
Senior Researcher
Author of The Precipice
Bill Simpson-Young
Gradient Institute
Chief Executive
Australia's AI Expert Group, NSW's AI Review Committee
Prof. Robert SparrowPhD
Monash University
Professor of Philosophy
Author of more than 50 refereed papers on AI and robot ethics
Prof. Michael A. Osborne
University of Oxford
Professor of Machine Learning
Co-author of well-known paper "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?" co-authored with Carl Benedikt Frey in 2013.
Dr. Ryan KiddPhD
MATS Research
Co-Executive Director
Co-Founder of the London Initiative for Safe AI
Dr. Paul LessardPhD
Symbolica
Principal Scientist
Author of Categorical Deep Learning
Prof. Richard DazeleyPhD
Deakin University
Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Researcher in AI Safety and Explainability
Prof. Paul SalmonPhD
Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems, University of the Sunshine Coast
Professor
Australia's discipline leader, Quality and Reliability, 2020 - 2024
Mr Justin Olive
Arcadia Impact
Head of AI safety
Dr. Tiberio Caetano
Gradient Institute
Chief Scientist
Dr. Alexander SaeriPhD
The University of Queensland | MIT FutureTech
AI Governance Researcher
Director, MIT AI Risk Index
Dr. Tom Everitt
Google DeepMind
Staff Research Scientist
Dr. Peter SlatteryPhD
MIT FutureTech
Researcher
Lead at the MIT AI Risk Repository
Dan Braun
Apollo Research
Lead Engineer/Head of Security
Dr. Marcel Scharth
The University of Sydney
Lecturer in Business Analytics (Machine Learning)
Dr. Daniel Max McIntosh
La Trobe University
AI governance researcher
Bryce Robertson
Alignment Ecosystem Development
Project Director
Simon Goldstein
The University of Hong Kong
Associate Professor, AI & Humanity Lab
Prof. Peter VamplewPhD
Federation University Australia
Professor, IT
Karl Berzins
FAR.AI
Co-founder & COO
Dr Simon O'Callaghan
Gradient Institute
Head of Technical AI Governance
Co-author of Implementing Australia’s AI Ethics Principles: A selection of Responsible AI practices and resources
Liam Carroll
Gradient Institute
Researcher
Jess Graham
The University of Queensland
Senior Research Coordinator
Assoc. Prof. Michael NoetelPhD
The University of Queensland
Associate Professor
Jarrah Bloomfield
Security Engineer
Dr. Aaron SnoswellPhD
Queensland University of Technology GenAI Lab
Senior Research Fellow
Greg Sadler
Good Ancestors
CEO
Pooja Khatri
University of Sydney
Lawyer and AI Governance Researcher
Soroush Pour
Harmony Intelligence
CEO
Harriet Farlow
Mileva Security Labs
CEO and Founder
Dr. Daniel Murfet
University of Melbourne
Mathematician, Deep Learning Researcher
Matthew Farrugia-Roberts
Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford
Clarendon scholar
Tobin Smit
Vow
Systems Engineer
Campbell Border
Software Engineer
Andrew Taylor
Rockland Legal
Technology Lawyer
Matt Fisher
Software engineer
Maintainer of inspect_evals on behalf of UK AISI
Hunter Jay
Software Engineer
Previously: CEO of Ripe Robotics
Yanni Kyriacos
AI Safety - Australia & New Zealand
Co-Founder & Director
Arush Tagade
Leap Labs
Research-Scientist
David Quarel
Australian National University, Cambridge University (Fmr.)
PhD student, Research Assistant (Fmr.)
Pip Foweraker
AI Governance researcher
Michael Kerrison
Independent AI safety researcher
Dr. Huaming ChenPhD, FHEA
The University of Sydney
Senior Lecturer
Evan Hockings
The University of Sydney
PhD student
James Dao
Harmony Intelligence
Research Engineer
Dr. Ryan Carey
Causal Incentives Working Group
Fmr AI Safety Lead @ Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford
Joseph Bloom
UK AI Security Institute
Head of White Box Evaluations
Dr. Cassidy NelsonMBBS MPH PhD
Centre for Long-Term Resilience
Head of Biosecurity Policy
Dane Sherburn
AI Safety Researcher
Sign the Open Letter
31% of 500 signatures
Join experts, researchers, and concerned citizens in calling for the Australian Government to take decisive action on AI safety.