Labor downplays AI extinction fears as tech bosses warn superintelligence race could put humanity at risk

Labor frontbencher Andrew Charlton has played down doomsday forecasts over an AI extinction threat, insisting Australians should not be overly focused on public warnings from tech bosses.

Across the weekend, Anthropic boss Dario Amodei called for the pace of development to slow down and aligned with warnings from AI researcher Jacob Coxon of an impending AI apocalypse.

However, despite the rallying cry for regulation — which was also echoed by fellow tech titans Elon Musk and Sam Altman — Dr Charlton used an Australian Strategic Policy Institute forum on Monday to soothe public anxiety.

“We’ve seen a lot of news in the last couple of days from some of these technology companies talking about their desire to slow things down,” Dr Charlton said.

“I don’t think we should care very much about what individual executives say.

“I think we should care about what is actually happening, and what’s actually happening is that we’re building the capability of these machines in a scaling environment, which is not bending, which is becoming more and more capable.

“Australia has a lot of agency here.”

Innovation Minister Tim Ayres was also dismissive of the public statements after a slouch in the Senate on Monday morning following the Greens move to suspend standing orders on the issue.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge had called for the government to debate and legislate safety testing and transparency on frontier AI systems, as well as greater international cooperation in a global treaty.

“We said to the Parliament today, ‘join with us, raise this as an issue’. Australia should urgently be now legislating to put guardrails around AI,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“We should be reaching out for a global treaty to put some constraints on AI and put pressure on the U.S and China who seem to think that they can just press on recklessly and put the entire planet at risk.”

“When we moved that motion in Parliament, what did Labor do? They joined with the Coalition and One Nation to vote it down”.

Senator Shoebridge was also scathing of Mr Charlton and Senator Ayres assessment, insisting it shows a “vacuum of leadership” and urged them to “act in the public interest” amid community anxiety over AI.

“Two key Labor ministers have basically dismissed the threat about the dangers of AI,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“Are they not listening to the warnings that are coming from Anthropic?

“Are they not hearing the whistleblowers that have been saying?

“It is extraordinary the denial that’s happening inside the Labor Party at the moment on this.”

In an opinion piece published on Monday, Dr Charlton insisted that Australia needed to get on with building data centres DownUnder or risk investors eyeing “Singapore, Tokyo and Virginia instead”.

He said without sovereign AI, Australia risked handing its most sensitive data to foreign servers.

“Imagine if our banks, our hospitals and our government systems all depended on computers sitting in another country. All our data, offshored to the lowest bidder,” he wrote.

“Most Australians would rightly ask: why are we trusting someone else with something so important?

“The cost isn’t only security and control — it’s electricians, apprentices, research scientists, engineers, and billions of dollars of investment and ­revenue.”

Anthony Albanese made a familiar reference to Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural papal encyclical which was released in May and warned AI posed a major threat to humanity while referencing the warnings from tech bosses in Parliament Question Time on Monday.

“Anthropic and others pointed to the serious risks that can emerge alongside the development and implementation of artificial intelligence,” the PM said.

“When AI companies themselves make these observations, it is even clearer that this change is something that we all must shape together — companies and governments alike, taking responsibility. “

The Prime Minister said his government’s approach to AI — which was announced during a landmark address at University of Sydney in July — showed that Labor was taking “risks seriously”.

Mr Hastie, who is the shadow industry minister, characterised the US competition against China as an AI “arms race” and suggested Australia strike a deal with the United States for frontier AI to be embedded in the AUKUS pact.

Mr Musk has said on multiple occasions that AI super-intelligence poses a more dangerous threat than nuclear weapons.

Senator Ayres wouldn’t be drawn on Mr Musk’s sobering prediction but labelled the continuous tech boss warnings as “not a surprise” and consistent with their long-held views.

“Warnings from the various CEOs and founders of tech companies are not a surprise,” Senator Ayres told The Nightly.

He said while the government was focused on securing AI investment, it wasn’t ignoring the safety and security concerns.

Senator Ayres vowed Australia’s Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute was working with partner institutes and that the Albanese government was engaging with companies.

He labelled the PM’s recently announced AI standards as a “proactive response” towards sovereign AI capability, from the required critical minerals up to the complex tech systems they’ll power.

Australian business leaders also backed a more internationally coordinated approach to AI.

“We support the need to put in place appropriate standards and safeguards that apply not just in Australia but elsewhere around the world,” Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry boss Andrew McKellar said.

“We see that AI does offer potentially significant upside benefits for the Australian economy.

“At the moment, there’s a huge boom going on in terms of building out the infrastructure to support the increased digital and AI capability in the economy.

“But we’ve got to maintain public confidence and social license.”

It comes as multiple parliamentary inquiries will examine AI across Australian society.

Mr Hastie will play a leading role in the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.

The committee closed submissions on Monday, with their final report due before November 30.

The inquiry examines the national and cyber security concerns, including foreign interference risks associated with AI such as impacts to critical infrastructure and the security and resilience of supply chains.

The House of Representatives has also opened an inquiry into the use of technology to assist in improving Australian productivity, which will have a year to investigate before the final report is due in late September 2027.