Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the fact that there is such work being done in the Department on this issue. It is appropriate that it is being regulated on a European-wide basis as it would be ineffective if we were just dealing with it domestically.

As the Minister of State is aware, technology has had significant benefits for this country and the global economy and nobody is suggesting that we should stop the march of technology but when you look at the potential consequences of AI, it is important that we recognise that this is a form of technology that we cannot allow to just develop the way the market desires it to. Obviously, it will have enormous consequences in the employment sphere. I suspect very many jobs we have taken for granted may be eliminated as a result of it. That may be difficult to regulate but what we certainly have to regulate is the impact it may have on democracy in terms of trying to images being presented as true when they are false. Will issues like that be considered in the context of the EU AI Act? Is this an issue that deserves to be considered?

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