Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. It is a particular pleasure to do that, having served with him at the Council of Europe in the past. I salute how avant-garde he is and how much he is embracing this whole area, leading out on it and ensuring we are at the front in the area of regulating the use of AI both in the positive and controlling senses.

I welcome our joining of the global partnership and the investment in the National Cyber Security Centre. I salute the Minister of State for all this. It is a great pleasure to hear from him. I look forward to his response, which will be very interesting.

I am happy to welcome and endorse the Fianna Fáil motion. I congratulate the party on conceiving a motion that is very much of the moment and the future. We support it.

The first thing that merits saying about AI is that it represents an exciting new vista.Looking at it from a positive point of view, it is generally understood that it will have phenomenally good effects in the area of health, that much more intricate surgeries will be able to be done with extraordinary precision and perhaps much rapidity, and that it will greatly enhance our health service. That is understood, is a given and is widely accepted. It has wide implications in the areas of agriculture, education and right across life. There is a very positive side to AI and to its development and it is effectively for good.

Due to its sheer power, its newness and the risk of it being controlled by unethical actors or by people of malevolent intent, it is important that it is regulated and that there is control. In that sense I also welcome the EU AI Act and I hope that it evolves in a satisfactory way.

I also agree with Senator O'Loughlin in that the Council of Europe is out there suggesting controls and regulation. The regulation and control are important. I believe it has to be controlled by parliaments, by the EU, and bodies like the Council of Europe, which have to set standards and criteria and make demands of member states in that area. Regulation and control will be important.

Senator Craughwell cautioned against an over-emphasis on the threat to democracy but I do not know if I fully agree with him on that because I believe it is important to put an emphasis there. It is important that we would be conscious of the risk of what misinformation and disinformation could do, and what could be done through deep fake. There is a risk there. We have seen - before the full unveiling of, development and full access to AI - the way in which there was a manipulation of the UK electorate on Brexit and how it was possible there to thwart the result, and to use technology and algorithms, etc., to affect the outcome in a negative way. There are dictatorships around the globe that have an anti-western and antidemocratic agenda and would want to damage the EU and the western sphere of influence. For that reason, it is particularly serious and I believe Brexit was a very clear example of that.

What is at the heart of this motion is a desire that there be governmental regulation and control; that there be supranational control through the EU and international bodies; that there be control at domestic government level; that we monitor the threats there; that we ensure ethical practice; and that big technology business does not write its own agenda here. I know from private conversations with Senator Malcolm Byrne, when we discussed the setting up of a subcommittee during my time as Leas-Chathaoirleach here - which he knows I was very favourably disposed towards - that that was an effort to deal with this particular motion today and of our support for it.

Again, of course, as Senator Craughwell constantly warns, we must be more than vigilant in the area of cyberattacks which have the potential to happen. We, in fact, did have one in the health service already. We could have it across social protection, it could hit banking and it could hit a whole myriad of areas. It can be done by one criminal gang or it can be done by a country with criminal or malevolent intent towards this country.

I will conclude on that basis because it is our strong desire to hear the Minister of State's thoughts as to where he see us achieving control, basically. Therein lies the public fear. We are all excited about the good things and want the good things to happen but we are concerned about where it could go wrong. We look forward to the Minister of State's thoughts on that in his response.