The federal Labor MP Julian Hill has used what is believed to be the first Australian parliamentary speech part-written by ChatGPT to warn that artificial intelligence could be harnessed for “mass destruction”.
On Monday the member for Bruce called for a white paper or inquiry to consider the “risks and benefits” of AI, warning it could result in student cheating, job losses, discrimination, disinformation and uncontrollable military applications.
Hill used ChatGPT prompts including “please summarise recent media reports about students using artificial intelligence in Australia to cheat and explain why teachers are worried about this” and “explain in 2 minutes the risks and benefits to Australia from artificial general intelligence” to compose sections of the speech.
As use of the text-based artificial intelligence software grows, New South Wales and Queensland have banned its use in schools.
The Victorian MP told the House of Representatives that “recently there have been media reports of students in Australia using AI to cheat on their exams”.
“AI technology, such as smart software that can write essays and generate answers, is becoming more accessible to students, allowing them to complete assignments and tests without actually understanding the material causing concern for teachers, who are worried about the impact on the integrity of the education system,” he said.
Hill also warned that students could be “effectively bypassing the educational process and gaining an unfair advantage” while teachers are unable to “identify and address cheating” – before revealing “I have to admit I didn’t write that”.
“In fact no human wrote that. The AI large language model ChatGPT wrote that.”
In another section written by ChatGPT, Hill warned about “the potential for job loss”, that artificial general intelligence “could perpetuate existing biases and discrimination” and “could be used for malicious purposes, such as cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns”.
ChatGPT also supplied possible benefits, such as AI’s “potential to revolutionise many industries, including healthcare, transportation and finance by increasing efficiency, reducing costs and improving decision-making”.
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Hill, Australia’s most prominent politician on the TikTok social media app, gently trolled the Liberal opposition by suggesting they ask ChatGPT “is climate change real?” and “what do we stand for?”.
In sections he wrote, Hill warned that artificial general intelligence posed risks that could be “disruptive, catastrophic and existential”.
“[Artificial general intelligence] has the potential to revolutionise our world in ways we can’t yet imagine, but if AGI surpasses human intelligence, it could cause significant harm to humanity if its goals and motivations are not aligned with our own,” he said.
“If humans manage to control AGI before an intelligence explosion, it could transform science, economies, our environment and society with advances in every field of human endeavour.
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“But the risk that increasingly worries people far cleverer than me is the unlikelihood that humans will be able to control AGI, or that a malevolent actor may harness AI for mass destruction.”
Hill said that “increasingly” scientists who rate risks put AI ahead of “asteroids, runaway climate change, super-volcanoes, nuclear devastation solar flares or high-mortality pandemics”.
AI has the potential to “transform warfare as we know it”, with “serious” implications for national security, he said.
“If AGI surpasses human intelligence, it could pose a threat to our military, potentially rendering our current defensive capabilities obsolete.”
Hill said that “just as the world has – finally and belatedly – started acting collectively on climate change, we must get our collective act together and urgently on AGI”.
“Many think that the challenges of collective action on AGI across nations is comparable to decades-long efforts on nuclear non-proliferation or international climate agreements. So we have to start now.”
Hill called for a “a concerted, serious, urgent policy think” starting in 2023, such as a white paper, an inquiry, a permanent commission, an international collaboration or some combination of those.
In 2021 Prof Stuart Russell, the founder of the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Guardian experts are “spooked” by the advance of AI, comparing it to the development of the atom bomb and prompting calls for greater regulation.
In 2014 the Tesla founder, Elon Musk, called for regulation of AI, warning that he regards it as the most serious threat to the survival of the human race.