Ed Sheeran responds to Macklemore axing + No, AI isn't going to destroy us all

Sacha Barbour Gatt (0:08)

Hi, Sacha Barbour Gatt with you, welcome to The Briefing. If you've spent the last week filled with existential dread about the fate of humanity, you wouldn't be alone. I'm talking, of course, about the dire warnings made by a bunch of AI bigwigs that, with the way things are going, artificial intelligence is on track to send us to extinction, possibly by the end of the decade. But should we believe them?

Emily M. Bender (0:29)

Will humanity at large avoid making really bad decisions about hooking up life-critical systems to random text-rederating machines? I hope we can avoid that, but that's a question about decisions that people make.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (0:43)

That chat is coming up in the second half of this episode. But first, as always, it's time for the headlines with Chris Spyrou on Wednesday, the 16th of September.

Pauline Hanson (0:54)

If I've offended people by using that, yes, I will apologise for that.

Chris Spyrou (0:57)

Morning, Sacha, and that was Pauline Hanson making a rare apology there, finally succumbing to pressure over her comments about Indigenous Australians. In resurfaced comments she made a year ago on a little-known conservative podcast, the One Nation leader referred to the country's First Nations people as the most primitive race on Earth. She still tried to deflect, though, in that apology, saying she's not shying away from a conversation that needs to be had, and that is one that, you know, she says is about Indigenous issues in Australia.

Pauline Hanson (1:26)

I will not back away from what needs to be discussed.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (1:29)

Her apology came after she'd initially doubled down on the comments, posting the full clip of the podcast appearance to her socials, saying, You be the judge. That video does remain up today.

Later in the brief press conference she held in the halls of Parliament House yesterday, the Senator also appeared to walk back comments she had made about Anthony Albanese's mum and his upbringing in Housing Commission.

Pauline Hanson (1:52)

I don't think my comments were derogatory towards his mother at all. If he's taking offence to it, well, I'm sorry for that.

Chris Spyrou (1:59)

It's a rare capitulation from Hanson who rarely backs down over her controversial statements and positions, but she's also admitted to misspeaking at times.

Pauline Hanson (2:08)

I've always put my foot in my mouth and why I come out and say things. I'm not the most eloquent speaker in how I deliver something, what I say.

Chris Spyrou (2:14)

On News 24 there, a short time before her public apology.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (2:18)

Yeah, I think she did definitely cave to increasing pressure. She had Jacinta Nampajimpa Price come out a couple of times over this. Matt Canavan, the head of the Nationals, Andrew Hasty from the Liberals, Melandere McCarthy from Labor, among many who condemned those initial comments she'd made about Indigenous Australians. Also, the Australian Human Rights Commission issued a statement denouncing the remarks.

This comes as well at an interesting time because there's new research that's just dropped from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures. I'll say that five times fast, but they have revealed or they have discovered that the population of Indigenous Australians before colonisation was actually far greater than first estimated. So initially, it was believed that there were about 250,000 First Nations people living in Australia when white settlers arrived, but it's now believed there were more than two million who were here in Australia. And then sadly, white settlers decimated the population through things like massacres and disease and displacement, dispossession and malnutrition. So it's interesting that that research has been released now. I'd say maybe to time it up to kind of show that, you know, the rich history of Indigenous Australians that was here before colonisation.

Chris Spyrou (3:30)

The government's being accused of putting AI companies ahead of Australians after a plan to overhaul our copyright laws was leaked yesterday. For months, labour's been lobbied by the big AI labs to amend our existing copyright rules so that their models can train on the work of Australian writers, artists and musicians. OpenAI turned up the pressure yesterday, warning it will hold back major investment here unless those rules are loosened. It says Australia could become the first country outside the US to host its AI training, but only if the government gives ground on copyright.

Sacha Barbour Gatt (4:01)

And the leaked plan does show just how far that could go.

Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic would be allowed to train on Australian content without directly paying the people who made it, as long as they cut deals with enough rights holders. Now, creators would be given the opportunity to opt out, but if they don't, their work could still be fair game under the plan. And that's because AI firms would either pay into a central fund that's shared among registered owners, or strike deals with industry groups, and that could sweep in people who never signed up. Now the leaked plan would also require AI companies to make best efforts to not train their models on pirated material. Now Independent Senator David Pocock yesterday hit out against this plan. He spoke in the Senate and he said, This would be huge and mean that our legal system would protect AI companies first and Australians second. The burden should not fall on Australians to defend the rights over content they hold, create and invest in.