Opened the debate
Pocock argued that the Minister had provided evasive answers rather than ruling out concerns about artificial intelligence impacts. Pocock contended that asking for guardrails and policies ensuring Australian benefits from data centre investment was not reckless speculation. Pocock highlighted the distinction between sovereign data centres and multinational hyperscalers using local resources to train models that could replace human labour. Pocock cited Jobs and Skills Australia regarding potential job losses and warned against undermining copyright protections for artists, authors, and journalists.