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South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas has announced a royal commission into artificial intelligence (AI).

Malinauskas has just come back from a trip to the US, where he met AI leaders and signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI.

At a press conference on Monday, Malinauskas said the commission would examine the future impacts of AI and place South Australia at the forefront of the global debate about its use. He said the royal commission would start in October, report no later than 1 July 2027, and would look at the impacts, risks and opportunities of AI across education, industry, public health, arts and culture. He said AI’s rapid development could not occur “unchecked”.

double quotation mark The Labor government I lead has a record of stepping up and protecting young people when it comes to social media, and this is no different.

We are looking to embrace the opportunity of AI, but not in a way that leaves us with regrets.

He said the discussion should focus on “how it will be deployed in our society, which is far more consequential than where a datacentre gets built”. He said:

double quotation mark Never before in human history have we contended with a world where there is something that’s smarter than us. Now we have it, and its intelligence is only going to increase at warp speed over the course of the next two years alone. That will change everything, and we need to make sure that what it changes is done on our terms for the interests of people.