Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies for contributing to this debate. It is important. The debate illustrates the importance of the Oireachtas committee on AI that will be established. I look forward to further detailed, sensible and balanced consideration of the issue. We can already witness a divide that is too extreme. There are those who see AI as totally negative, others who see positives in it and others still who see the need for balance and guidance around the use of AI. One thing for sure is that AI is here and will be a significant revolution. Nobody is drunk on anything. This is just the reality of life in the world. It is not just in Ireland but in the world. We have choices. We can put our heads in the sand, present it as some dastardly plot from the industrial or technological giants of the world and say that we want none of it or we can endeavour to harness it for the benefit of industry, society, the economy and the people. That is going to be the challenge, as it has been with all technological developments since the world began. It is inevitable when there are major breakthroughs in technology. If we look back to the printing press or go back to the 1960s and the development of television, there were naysayers and people who were worried and thought the world was going to collapse and so on. The world adapts and people adapt. We need regulatory frameworks governing everything. We need a balance between regulation and innovation, and we must get that balance right here. It will have profound impacts for energy, for example. We must ascertain how to create the energy resources to underpin the AI revolution that is coming. If we are not a part of the revolution that is taking place in technical terms, there will be economic consequences. It will have profound impacts on how we do things in life and in work, in particular.

The EU does not get any credit at all from a number of people in this House. It is interesting. Deputy Malcolm Byrne gave an interesting and quick summation of where the world is. The EU has an Act that is endeavouring to deal with human rights and the protection of society and individuals. The Deputy instanced Iran, Israel, China and others. There is a divide across the world at the moment between autocracies and authoritarian governments, on the one hand, and democracies and institutions such as the EU on the other. The EU has been the first to develop a modern Act endeavouring to strike a balance between innovation and regulation. Some say it is too heavily on the side of regulation and less so on the side of innovation. This is the basis on which the committee we are about to establish should engage.

The Department of Education, with the support of Oide, the support service for teachers and school leavers, is currently developing guidance on the use of AI in teaching and learning. This guidance will be published and circulated to schools shortly. Currently, information on AI in education for schools can be found on the Oide technology and education website.

I was at the young scientist exhibition at the beginning of January and many of the projects submitted by young people were on the subject of AI. Young people are ahead of this place, as far as I can see so far, in terms of where they see, and how they perceive, AI. They are dealing with it. We have to put the student first in all our considerations of this issue.

On the redevelopment of the senior cycle and the State Examinations Commission, the AI guidance currently being finalised does not apply to assessment for the purpose of certification by the State Examinations Commission in the junior or leaving certificates. Further work is being undertaken by the State Examinations Commission on general and subject-specific documentation.

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