Australia: eSafety Commissioner Proposes ‘Safety Guardrails’ To Curb Harmful Generative AI
By Kenn Anthony Mendoza
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has outlined steps how the industry can protect children from the dangers posed by generative AI, revealing that AI-generated child sexual abuse material and deepfakes are already being reported to eSafety investigators.
Attributing advice from international experts in AI, eSafety’s new the trends position provides safety interventions that the industry can adopt to improve user safety and empowerment.
The paper detailed interventions such as:
– appropriately resourced trust and safety teams
– age-appropriate design supported by robust age-assurance measures
– red-teaming and violet-teaming before deployment
– routine stress tests with diverse teams to identify potential harms
– informed consent measures for data collection and use
– escalation pathways to engage with law enforcement, support services or illegal content hotlines, like eSafety
– real-time support and reporting
– regular evaluation and third-party audits.
The tech trends position statement also sets guidelines for the youth, parents, and educators. It will also extend to reporting schemes for serious online abuse, transparency tools, and the status of mandatory codes and standards.
eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant warned that if the industry does not implement safety guardrails into generative AI, it may get worse as it becomes more widespread and sophisticated.
“This month, we received our first reports of sexually explicit content generated by students using this technology to bully other students. That’s after reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse material and a small but growing number of distressing and increasingly realistic deepfake porn reports,” she revealed.
Grant said safety must not be sacrificed in favour of innovation or speed to market.
Recently registered codes will soon require some social media services to take proactive steps to detect and remove child sexual exploitation material. eSafety is also currently considering a revised Search Engine Code, which directly considers generative AI. Mandatory standards are also being developed for electronic services and designated internet services.
“Online safety requires a coordinated, collaborative global effort by law enforcement agencies, regulators, NGOs, educators, community groups and the tech industry itself. Harnessing all the positives of generative AI, while engineering out the harms, requires a whole-society response,” Grant said.
The position paper also recommends that users understand what personal information is being accessed from the open web when using generative AI, and then take steps to protect their data.
