Call for extra tax on companies replacing workers with AI
Businesses that replace workers with artificial intelligence tools should pay additional taxes, an inquiry will hear, as well as calls for restrictions on the use of the technology and greater government oversight.
Photo: AAP
The calls are expected at the Adopting Artificial Intelligence inquiry at Parliament House on Tuesday, which will hear from media, digital rights and human rights groups, as well as legal and AI experts.
The event will be the inquiry’s third public hearing after sittings in Canberra and Sydney which heard concerns about copyright and that Australia had been slow to adopt the technology due to a lack of guidelines.
Representatives from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, which are due to appear early at the hearing, will call for new AI rules, including disclosures when data is used to train AI models and protection and payment for content creators.
MEAA chief executive Erin Madeley said AI represented the biggest change to creative industries since the arrival of the internet and artists and writers were seeing their work used without their consent.
“It is theft, plain and simple – theft of people’s voices, their faces, their music, their stories and art,” she said.
“If left unchecked, the increased use of AI tools in the media, arts and creative industries will lead to mass job losses and the end of intellectual property as we know it.”
Madeley called on the federal government to introduce a tax on companies that replaced human roles with AI technology, and to update employment laws to ensure workers were consulted on the use of AI tools.
In a submission, the Australian Association of Voice Actors also called for restrictions on the use of AI, amid concerns its workers were having their voices cloned and used without permission or compensation.
“It is (our) firm belief that AI can be of great help and benefit, if used in an ethical way, but without firm legislation in place ethical use in not assured,” the group said.
“If we allow developers of AI to continue completely unfettered, the voice actor industry will spiral out of control, eventually operating at the hands of a few IT companies.”
Other groups due to appear before the select committee include Adobe, Human Rights Watch and the Law Council of Australia.
– AAP
