America’s big tech bosses are trying to get artificial intelligence deployed everywhere, taking over our homes, our hobbies and our work.  By now, most of us are using AI for daily tasks, even if by accident. But it doesn’t mean we all agree with the path we’re on and increasingly people are voicing their concerns about the AI revolution.  Today, the ABC’s national AI reporter Cam Wilson on the growing backlash. Featured:  Cam Wilson, ABC’s national AI reporterSubscribe to ABC News Daily on the ABC listen app.Program:More from ABC News DailyAustralia, United States, AI, AI Ethics, Information Technology Industry, Business and Industry Regulation, WorkTranscriptSam Hawley: America's big tech bosses are trying to get artificial intelligence deployed everywhere. And by now, most of us are using AI, even if by accident, for daily tasks. But it doesn't mean we all agree with the path we're on. Today, the ABC's national AI reporter, Cam Wilson, on the growing revolt against AI. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.Sam Hawley: Cam, comedian Ronnie Chieng, who launched his career in Australia, was a speaker at a Harvard University graduation ceremony recently. And he really did touch a nerve when it came to AI, didn't he?Cam Wilson: Yes, there have been a lot of commencement speakers who've been mentioning AI. Obviously, one of the biggest topics in the world right now, particularly relevant to young people thinking about a future career. Ronnie's approach to it was a little unorthodox.Ronny Chieng, Actor: Can I just say, f*** AI. F*** AI.Cam Wilson: He told them quite directly that their job was not to embrace and adopt AI, but to destroy it. He said that it was making mediocre people feel like they were smarter. And it's something that he thought has ultimately been a pretty negative influence on the world. So not a massive fan of it.Ronny Chieng, Actor: The creating is the fun part. And I know this platitude is almost worthy of AI, but the reason shortcuts to skip to the end aren't always good is because the journey isn't just how we acquire skills. The journey is the point of all this.Sam Hawley: And the crowd really did like that message coming from Ronnie Chieng. And interestingly as well, the former Google boss, Eric Schmidt, he also spoke at the University of Arizona. Now, he was spruiking the virtues of AI, Cam, but he was actually booed.Cam Wilson: Yeah, did not get the same receptive audience that Ronnie did. And he kind of went to them with this message saying, hey, you know, there is this new thing and you should be embracing it. You know, trying to use this technological transformation to, you know, make the world a better place. In some ways, quite an anodyne message, but one that earned the boos and jeers of the audience.Eric Schmidt, fmr Google CEO: So today we stand on this edge of another technological transformation. It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person and every relationship you have. I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you.Sam Hawley: Yeah, and the thing is we have also, Cam, seen protests across the United States, right? Particularly against these massive data centres, also concern about AI taking jobs. So it's like there's a little movement going on.Cam Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. In response to companies setting up data centres across communities, you know, in the US and in Australia too, you're seeing these mobilising of people against them in a way that has never happened before. You know, I was talking to someone in Australia about data centres and they were saying, you know, two years ago, no one cared what we did with data centres. Now they're all up in arms.Sam Hawley: Yeah, and even the Pope has some concerns, doesn't he? He had this huge intervention.Cam Wilson: Yes, he did. He came out with this 42,000 word encyclical about kind of, you know, the perils of AI. And, you know, not just the fact that he's talking about the technology itself, but he was talking also about the approach to AI from the people who are creating it, promoting it. He kind of compared it to the Tower of Babel. He was saying, you know, humanity is building this thing that is so big and is treating it in a way that it's almost, you know, in competition with God itself, and that this hubris ultimately will tumble down and end up, you know, biting them.Pope Leo: Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences and indicating paths forward for humanity.Sam Hawley: Very powerful words from the Pope. But tell me, Cam, what do we know about how Australians are actually feeling about AI at this point? There was a poll that came out from the accounting firm EY showing that trust levels are, I don't know, pretty low, right?Cam Wilson: Yeah, we are the equal lowest in the world in terms of negative sentiment towards AI. And we have the kind of most bad vibes about it at the moment. That came from EY, but there is plenty of other polling about this. We see time and time again, more than a majority of Australians are distrustful of AI. They're worried about the companies in particular. You know, they worry about things like how these companies are using their data, using their resources. There is this broad feeling, which is kind of funny at the same time, because Australians are also some of the highest users of AI in the world. And all the time Australians are trying it, and the more we've been using it, polling suggests the more that we are distrustful of it, and the more that we fear its risks outweigh its benefits.Sam Hawley: Wow. Okay. Well, Cam, let's delve a bit further into what's been a pretty rapid shift in support, I guess, for AI. Now, a big part of this growing discontent, as we referred to before, is that AI is literally taking people's jobs.News report: Widespread job cuts in the tech sector have seen layoffs not seen since the dot-com bust of the early 2000s.News report: Telstra recently announced it was looking to let go of over 600 staff as it slashes costs and accelerates the rollout of artificial intelligence.News report: Australia's largest bank is readying itself for an AI future, announcing a $90 million program to help staff prepare for the changing workplace. The bank also announced yesterday it'll cut 300 jobs.Sam Hawley: Just tell me, what do we know about that? What impact is it having already? Now, the tech sector is particularly vulnerable at this point.Cam Wilson: Yeah, absolutely. Look, you know, I think there's two things to separate out here. The first one is the headlines. We are seeing a lot about AI potentially taking people's jobs and replacing human work. We are seeing companies lay off staff, saying, we are reshaping our workforce in response to the new challenges and benefits of AI. That means that we are justifying, making certain roles redundant. We've seen that from WiseTech, ComBank, Atlassian, all of which have cited it as part of layoffs. And at the same time, this is not a conspiracy. This is not this idea that this is being muttered somewhere in corporate documents. Many of the promoters of these technologies, the CEOs of some of the big American AI frontier labs, your open AIs, your Anthropics, the big players are saying this technology that we have will replace human work. That's one aspect of it. When you look at the kind of broader, you know, economy-wide data, it's a little bit weaker in terms of the evidence about what AI is doing in Australia to a workforce. We've had a few reports come out that are looking at it and presenting some evidence saying, you know, there are these industries that we think are the most exposed to AI. We think that they are the most vulnerable to parts of their job being replaced by it and automated. So, for example, a lot of white collar work, you know, secretarial work, that kind of thing. We're saying this could be automated by this technology if it works well. At the same time, there is still not widespread data showing that there is significant layoffs of staff to deal with this new technology. What's kind of happening is there's some evidence suggesting that maybe there is a softening of new jobs in these AI exposed industries. Perhaps bosses are saying, hey, Tim left and we don't actually need to replace him because perhaps we can give some of his job responsibility to someone else who can do that in a quicker amount of time. But the top line, you know, these fears of a mass redundancy, the layoffs and unemployment as a result of AI, really does not seem to be there yet. It seems to be projections and pointing forward something that people want to prepare for, but is not currently happening.Sam Hawley: Hmm. Okay. So no mass redundancies just yet, although of course some people have been losing their jobs because of AI. So that's one area of concern, of course, and that's a concern that's going forward. But there is so much more, right? There's so much to this that people are concerned about. So just run me through a quick laundry list, I guess, of concerns about what AI might mean for all of us.Cam Wilson: Now, you know, it is a very common experience for Australians to see fake news, AI slop, which is the kind of term for, you know, low effort AI generated content in your social media feeds. And that's very much linked to the fact that there is also this question around what these AI models were trained on. And that included a lot of people's intellectual property and creative works. So many creative industries and rights holders are saying these companies that have become some of the most, you know, powerful and valuable in the world have built this technology off the back of our work and we've received very little, if not no compensation for it. And then you've got the fact that this form of computing, artificial intelligence is drastically more computing intensive than before. So as a result, these companies are having to build out the infrastructure, which is these data centres. Data centres are asking to use significant amounts of power, some water. They're promoting these benefits that in some cases are diffuse, you know, saying, well, make the economy more efficient. But at the same time, I can understand that, you know, even if they say, well, maybe these benefits come down the road, you know, right now I'm kind of feeling the pinch and I'm not super happy about that.Sam Hawley: Yeah. Especially because there's a consolidation of wealth going on among the tech billionaires.Cam Wilson: Absolutely.Sam Hawley: Alright, well, Cam, let's consider now if this decline in confidence in where AI is heading can be countered or even if it should be. Is it important, do you think, that we trust AI? Because it does appear at this point that we are on a train that we really can't get off.Cam Wilson: I see from the government that they understand this problem. I have spoken to people who have in the industry, researchers, politicians who all see this as a massive issue. Andrew Charlton, who is the Assistant Minister for Industry, he had a speech which gave to the summit of kind of business and tech leaders, usually an audience who it would be natural for a politician to go, rah, rah, we'd love to get investment and let's go. To me, he delivered quite a solemn speech where he focused on saying, we in Australia need to do what we can to avoid a US style AI backlash. The way that we're going to do that is, yes, get money in from these AI companies to pay Australian workers and businesses, but also make sure that the benefits of this are spread across the economy and that we keep Australians safe from the harms of AI. They launched Australia's AI Safety Institute, which is a government body that's dedicated to saying, let's monitor and test for these risks from emerging technologies and dealing with them. That is the sense of how seriously they're taking it. They're saying, we need expertise focusing on this, advising us so we can do something about this. That is their pitch to say, if we want to see uptake of AI, like the government has spoken about in the budget, the case from the government is that the companies need to build a social license in Australia for people to feel like they can trust these products to get their benefits.Sam Hawley: Yeah. And even Donald Trump, I think, is coming around to the view that perhaps the government does need to intervene in some way. He has signed an executive order asking tech companies to share their AI models for 30 days before they actually get released. Will that actually reassure anyone though?Cam Wilson: It's a good question. It's quite an about face for the Trump administration. The Trump administration approach from the start was, let's go. For us, this is a business thing. It's a national security thing. We want to beat China. We want to make sure we have all of this development in America and not elsewhere. Now they're saying, we want to see it before you roll this out so we can understand how much of an issue this is and how powerful it is. The fact that they have gone from saying, yes, yes, let's go to, we need to pump the brakes just a little bit. We need to have a little bit of warning, I think shows that they have looked at this stuff up close and seem to be accepting some of the claims of there are real potential risks for this technology if it falls into the wrong hands.Sam Hawley: All right. But in the end, Cam, what do you think? Are the tech bosses really at this point too wealthy and too powerful to really allow anything to get in their way?Cam Wilson: You know, Australia does actually have quite a bit of leverage in this way. Not only do Australians quite like it when government steps in, typically, compared to other countries, we also have a bit of a history of regulating technology more than other countries. Australia's approach to social media with the Online Safety Act and then the teen social media ban shows that we're willing to go a little bit further. Australia has this advantage where many of these top AI companies are looking to find new places to have serious home bases. So companies like Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI are all looking to make serious investments here. But when they want to do that, Australia has this choice. How do we want to greet them here? Do we want to? And if we do, what are the expectations we're going to give them? Yes, there is this enormous concentration of wealth and power, but Australia actually does have the opportunity to do something about it. And will that be enough to make us comfortable and build up trust in the technology while also giving enough to these companies that we can still entice them here?Sam Hawley: Cam Wilson is the ABCs national AI reporter. This episode was produced by Sydney Pead. Audio production by Sam Dunn. Our supervising producer is David Coady. I’m Sam Hawley. Thanks for listening.