{"id":39833,"date":"2026-07-07T18:28:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=39833"},"modified":"2026-07-07T18:28:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T08:28:46","slug":"australia-cannot-become-a-dumping-ground-for-big-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/07\/07\/australia-cannot-become-a-dumping-ground-for-big-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia Cannot Become a Dumping Ground for Big AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Responding to reports that AI company Anthropic plans to secure 1.4 gigawatts of Australian data centre capacity, Senator for South Australia and Chair of the Senate inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres, Sarah Hanson-Young, said:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBig AI won\u2019t seem to take no for an answer when it comes to destroying Australia&#8217;s copyright regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cReports that Anthropic are continuing to lobby to undermine Australia\u2019s copyright laws are deeply concerning. If they want to use copyrighted material to train their AI, they should pay for it like everyone else does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAfter strong pressure from rights holders, the Albanese Government has already ruled out a text and data mining exemption for AI. It would be a betrayal of Australia\u2019s creative industries if they went back on that promise now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe building of 1.4 gigawatts of new data centre capacity could have a massive impact on Australia\u2019s energy, water and environment. The community deserves to have a say on whether or not they want to become the data centre dumping ground for US based companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe need a moratorium on the building of new hyperscale data centres until we get the regulatory settings right.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAI is the new extractive industry, and we cannot allow companies to lock in vast amounts of Australia\u2019s energy, water and data resources before proper rules are in place. Strong regulation must come before sweetheart deals and backroom contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cAustralia cannot afford to sleepwalk into a big tech AI experiment. The public deserves a clear understanding of what these massive data centres will mean for our environment, our energy grid, local communities and Australia\u2019s creative industries and copyright holders before any major decisions are made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe Senate Inquiry is now accepting submissions, and I encourage anyone concerned about the impact of AI and data centres on their community, industry or environment to make a submission. This inquiry is an important step in ensuring Australia gets the rules right before this industry becomes too big for governments to regulate properly.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Responding to reports that AI company Anthropic plans to secure 1.4 gigawatts of Australian data centre capacity, Senator for South Australia and Chair of the Senate inquiry into artificial intelligence and data centres, Sarah Hanson-Young, said: \u201cBig AI won\u2019t seem to take no for an answer when it comes to destroying Australia&#8217;s copyright regime. \u201cReports &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2026\/07\/07\/australia-cannot-become-a-dumping-ground-for-big-ai\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Australia Cannot Become a Dumping Ground for Big AI&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39833"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39834,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39833\/revisions\/39834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}