Australia's Plan to Turn Compute Into Sovereign AI — Dr Andrew Charlton MP [Compute Series]

If you take, for example, the second industrial revolution in the late 19th, early 20th century, One view of new general purpose technologies, like in that example, electricity or steel manufacturing processes, is that the way they affect the global distribution of wealth and power isn't so much, or the countries who come out on top aren't so much the countries who innovated first, but rather the countries who diffused those general purpose technologies as deeply and widely as they could.

As kind of just a general starting point or strategy for a middle power like Australia, is that approach of just going all in on diffusion complete? Is it correct? Would you edit that or tell me how you think about that?

Let me make a broader point first, which is I think there is a lot to learn from previous general purpose technologies and their implementation in centuries gone past.

The biggest lessons I take out of those were, number one, ultimately those technologies produced an enormous amount of good.

They created a lot of prosperity and opportunity and paved the way for the advances of human flourishing that we've been lucky enough to enjoy in our lifetimes.

I think that's the first thing that I take away from the introduction of those big technologies.

But the second thing that I take away is that often the pathway towards those benefits was non-linear.

There were periods after the first industrial revolution where wages went backwards very materially.

where the lifespan of people living in the UK was falling, not rising after the introduction of those technologies.

And it took a lot of time, a lot of effort on the part of governments and workers and others to turn that technological progress into social progress.

I think that was true in the first industrial revolution.

It was true to different extents in later introductions of these types of general purpose technologies.

And that for me is the biggest

lesson.

How that benefits a cruise to different economies

around the world to answer your question.

There are certainly lots of countries around the world which benefited from the technologies that were invented in the first industrial revolution and invented in the second industrial revolution.

And those technologies were diffused around the world and created enormous benefits in the UK, in Australia, in Japan, in many other places.

And you are right that one of One of the main ways that benefits accrued was not just through the invention, but through the adoption of those technologies.

And that will be a part of the benefits of artificial intelligence as well.

Countries that are able to adopt, able to integrate artificial intelligence, they will receive those benefits.

I was with a small business person last night who was telling me that they were saving hours every day by using artificial intelligence in their job.

That is a big productivity boost for them that enables them to do more, be more competitive, be more successful in their business.

I was at the optometrist last week and the optometrist said to me, can I push a button and record our conversation so that I can save myself a lot of paperwork at the end of this and see more patients, give you a better record of our meeting.

So I think there are huge benefits there and adoption is part of the story, but I don't think it's the whole story.