An aging population; a grim geopolitical outlook; industrial changes… All of them were addressed in Treasury’s latest Intergenerational report, but artificial intelligence – its promises and its challenges – overshadowed them all.
“The productivity, investment and labour market impacts of AI will be dramatic,” Treasurer Jim Chalmers said at a launch event for the report.
“The IGR shows that from 2030 onwards, each extra 0.1 per cent of productivity growth from AI could improve the bottom line by 0.7 percentage points and reduce gross debt by 0.3 percentage points within a decade.
“We are well positioned with Australians adopting AI at a higher rate than almost every G20 country, but the productivity boost from AI depends on translating that into better ways of working.”
There’s no doubt that Chalmers and his colleagues are buying into AI’s hype – even while his boss signed a declaration calling for a global watchdog – but the devil will be in the details, says Nicole Henry (pictured), Head of Government Affairs, Australia and New Zealand at Fortinet.
“Australia’s AI productivity ambition will depend on cyber resilience being built into the infrastructure that supports it. This infrastructure extends beyond physical data centres; it includes cloud and networks, as well as the data, identities, systems, and connected operational environments,” Henry told Cyber Daily.
“The IGR’s treatment of AI as both a productivity opportunity and a national security question makes that connection particularly useful. Cyber security cannot be treated only as a national security guardrail or compliance cost. It is an enabling condition for organisations to transform, deliver services, and achieve their broader objectives.”
Securing AI is not enough in isolation, however, and Henry contends that any productivity gains will rely upon bringing together technology, people, governance, and collaboration.
“We have already seen the convergence of IT, operational technology (OT), and the Internet of Things (IoT). AI is now bringing data, security, privacy, and the way organisations work much closer together,” Henry said.
“AI is already changing workflows, how information is generated and used, and where decisions sit inside organisations. As adoption moves quickly, we need to be just as deliberate about how data is governed, how security and privacy are built in, and how the organisation will operate. The objective is secure transformation, not security added after transformation.”
According to Henry, the government’s role is to make sure all these facets work together in the nation’s interest. Confidence in the technology and its capabilities should be the end-goal.
“That coherence is particularly important, as this year has seen a high concentration of government policy and regulatory activity shaping the technology market,” Henry said.
“AI security is an architectural decision. Infrastructure creates capacity for AI, but organisations will realise the productivity benefits only if resilience is built in from the start.”
Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?Make Cyber Daily a preferred news source on Google.
