Anthony Albanese has snapped a selfie with US President Donald Trump after the White House flatly rejected the Australian Prime Minister’s call to regulate AI and social media algorithms.
The Prime Minister took the photo at a reception Mr Trump hosted for all world leaders attending the United Nations General Assembly summit in New York at a published it on his social media accounts.
Hours earlier, Mr Trump humbled Mr Albanese’s push to lead a middle power coalition capable of setting global rules.
In Canberra, the US President’s hand-picked Ambassador released a statement through the Embassy saying the Australian Government’s proposed Duty of Digital Care legislation would be viewed as censorship.
“If Australia compels platforms to aggressively filter content in algorithmic feeds to satisfy a Government mandate, and such filtering draws in protected speech, the effect on a disfavoured speaker or media source’s reach would not be meaningfully different than outright removal. The US Government would likely consider such a measure as facilitating censorship,” the statement warned.
Mr Albanese has spent his trip to Silicon Valley and New York to push for restrictions on algorithms as well as AI, amid warnings from tech bosses that cutting-edge models are escaping control and could be harmful.
He has joined with middle powers like Canada to push for international controls and oversight.
On Tuesday in New York he met South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and for the first time the new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, with whom he discussed the AUKUS submarine acquisition pact along with artificial intelligence.
The US and China are locked in a fierce race to dominate the technological race on AI.
Addressing the opening sessions of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the President said he “totally rejects” the calls to slow down the development of AI.
“I’m not going to stifle growth of something that will be bigger than the industrial revolution,” Mr Trump told world leaders, including Mr Albanese, who were watching him speak.
“Many say bigger than the industrial revolution or the internet itself.”
Underlining his point, Mr Trump said he would refer to artificial intelligence as super intelligence as it did not just sound better but was more accurate.
This is not just a Trumpian rebrand; the distinction is significant because in the AI sector super intelligence is used to refer to the point when computing overtakes human intelligence capabilities.
“Every major, new technology brings challenges, and super intelligence is no exception,” he added.
If Australia had a case to mount, it evidently fell on deaf ears.
Mr Trump hosts China’s President Xi Jinping at the White House on Thursday night. The prime minister did not seek a pre-summit meeting either, despite being the other half in China’s major trading relationship and the United States’ Five Eyes and AUKUS pact partnerships.
Speaking to the media at Macquarie Bank’s headquarters off Fifth Avenue, he linked his social media ban for teenagers, which has been copied by many jurisdictions, to the need to curb AI.
“This afternoon, I, together with the President of France Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister of Kenya, the Prime Minister of Spain, we launched the Coalition for Children’s Rights and Protection in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” he said.
“And this is just one of the aspects that the world now is debating. There’s recognition that a year ago, when we came to New York following our legislation in 2024, we were leading the world, and indeed now more than 20 nations have joined in.
“And there’s a recognition that social media has had an impact on young people, and there is a need to do something about it. And there’s a need as well for us to examine these issues going forward.”
He said that this legislation was not political.
“The digital duty of care is something that we’ve foreshadowed for some period of time,” he said.
“It’s not about giving government control; it’s about giving people back control over what they receive on their devices, which is why it is framed in that way.”
Mr Albanese published on social media a selfie that he took with US President Donald Trump at a reception hosted for world leaders.
Speaking ahead of the encounter, he said he was looking forward to engaging with the US President there.
“We have put forward a strong position, Australia. I’m proud of what we have done on social media and the fact that the European Union have now announced a major reform as well, joining the more than 20 countries who’ve taken action — Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, in our own region, New Zealand have now moved.
“And increasingly there’s a recognition that new technology can bring enormous benefits. And artificial intelligence can boost our economy; it can boost productivity; it can advance healthcare in ways that were unimaginable a while ago with breakthroughs. There are a range of advantages, but we need to make sure that humans are in control.”
Mr Albanese’s social media ban, first proposed by the Coalition, is overwhelmingly supported in Australia.
But he is on less certain terrain when it comes to extending this to algorithms and big tech. His sliding popularity combined with the regulatory push only lends credence to the idea, rightly or wrongly, that he is trying to restrict contrary political opinion, which could easily be defeated with persuasion, as opposed to suppression.
Donald Trump is hardly viewed by Australians as a world leader acting in their interest. But the danger for Mr Albanese is that he is seen as no more a trustworthy figure on an issue as fundamental as free speech, however it is disseminated.
Conflating the social media ban with broader restrictions on tech may end up making Mr Albanese the frenemy of a good cause.
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