Aussie-Aussie-AI

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I’m hearing a lot of debate about ‘Sovereign AI’ in Australia.

Some assume this to mean a large language model which knows what ‘bonza’ or ‘bogan’ means, and that a ‘schooner’ is always a beer, but of a different volume depending on your location.

This model may well have a cringey name, like ‘WombatAI’ or AussieAussieAI’.

There may be some jingoistic or nationalistic ‘Aussie’ sentiment behind this, a bit like cheering for the green & gold at the Olympics, or a proudly wearing a southern cross tatt.

What is Sovereign AI ?

It’s obviously nothing to do with cheesy Aussie icons or even zealous patriotism. I’d consider it as more of an attitude than a thing:

> Reducing our reliance on others for AI

> A mindset of building our own AI, not buying it from elsewhere

> Thinking big & long term, not just our immediate needs (or the current AI fad)

Mick Dundee AI

More than a LLM:

Sovereign AI goes way deeper than just an Aussie LLM. To me, it means:

  • Investing in AI research & development
  • Developing, attracting & retaining AI talent in Australia
    (I don’t see anything on the ‘skilled occupation list‘ for Australian residency–>citizenship, although you are fine if you are an acupuncturist or apiarist)
  • Supporting business with AI innovation through taxation or other mechanisms
  • Having necessary compute, for both training and inference
  • Recognising the value of quality training data to artificial intelligence (AI can’t exist in isolation)
  • Having control on how AI is applied, such as moral, legal and intellectual property issues.
  • Appreciating that AI needs to be applied & leveraged, not just created. So we need to actively develop complementary high value fields (science, technology, engineering etc) rather than AI only being used for high-school assignments.
  • It isn’t a once-off endeavour, but depends on long term development & strategy

Without these things, we will have no choice but to buy it from elsewhere.

Why ?

Apart from gaining some geopolitical independence, or reducing the impact of an unscrupulous tech-bro arbitrarily flipping a switch, we should be investing in industries of the future, not of the past.

We talk love to about productivity, but can’t escape the thinking that this means doing the same thing as yesterday but faster, like digging holes or making widgets. In fact, it means doing new, high-value things– like AI.

If we desire well paid, interesting and in-demand jobs, I can’t think of anything better than a career in STEM.

This is where the future is: doing stuff that others can’t. We won’t be able to achieve this by just buying artificial intelligence from somewhere else. So this is why ‘Sovereign AI’ is critical for Australia.