Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In some ways, this debate is incredibly refreshing. While we are dealing with an incredibly new technology, there is nothing new about the debate we are having. We could replace the word "AI" with the word "steam", "electricity", "computers" or "Internet". All of them are just technological developments and it is up to us as a society to decide how we react to them.

Having listened to the debate, I believe we have three options: one, pull the plug, hunker down and pretend AI is not happening; two, take no risks and let somebody else do it; and three, try to be at the forefront and shape AI ourselves. In my view, we should be taking the third option. It is what we have done with other technological developments in this country. It has brought us challenges, but also significant benefits.

Like Deputy Gogarty's speech, mine is entirely written by AI, but it is my speech because I am the one who is going to read it. AI is not reading it into the record of this House; I am. It is my speech because I am the one who prompted it. I fed in not only one prompt but prompts concerning several external sources I trust and wanted to reference. It is my speech because I put in a prompt that was nearly as long as the output. That is the difference between one-line use of ChatGPT and how AI will be used. Large language models like ChatGPT are only the thin veneer of how AI will be used. In some ways, it is the thing that is most accessible to all of us. It will demonstrate how we can use the technology. In Beaumont Hospital, where I was only four weeks ago, they were using AI to carry out operations on patients. The surgeon logs in from the United States and carries out the surgery here in Beaumont.

As with any of the things we have talked about, there will be huge challenges. The issues of data, energy and regulation are all important and there is no way we should go into this without checks and believing the technology should have no limits. In fact, it should be the very opposite. When we consider the social media revolution, many of us wish we had intervened far earlier. By not intervening, we have limited our own ability to respond in society.

I wish the Minister of State the best of luck. I look forward to working with her in this area. I am not a tech expert either but I want to learn about AI and the societal challenges we face. AI will drive the consumption of water and energy, including wind energy in Ireland. Ireland has and will have the potential to be one of the leading exporters of wind energy in western Europe. That energy can power data centres as well as other areas. The prediction is we will be a net exporter of renewable energy. Let data centres be part of it, not for their sake but for that of all the benefits we have talked about.

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