Dee Ryan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I give my compliments and gratitude to all of the speakers for being here to lead us in this important discussion and helping the committee to think about the issues they have rightly highlighted in each of their opening statements. I had a good look through the opening statements in advance of coming in this morning. What jumps out at me having listened to them being delivered, as opposed to reading them from the page, are two issues that are cropping up. Grace, Fionn, Mr. Murray and Ms Blackwell spoke about them, and Ms Lynch touched on them. They are the challenges of critical thinking and how we empower and support our young people and children in recognising the difference between information that has been amassed across all sources and has not necessarily been verified, and which is being returned to them in the work they may do in the positive benefits of AI and using AI tools to assist them in education, learning and creativity. How do we help them to develop the critical thinking skills that allow them to identify that trusted, verified information from the potential for deepfakes, and for sinister and dangerous content? This really jumped out at me, and Ms Blackwell put her finger on it. This content is actually being repackaged and pushed through recommender systems. At this point we have little control over moderating other than by flagging and raising an objection afterwards. We all know too well the difficulties there are with pulling that content back in once it is out there.

My question is for Ms Blackwell. Can she expand her thoughts on that crossover between what we are addressing today and the recommender systems? What recommendations would she like to see coming from this committee, and what would she like it to think about in terms of legislation and Government support to address those issues?