Join 355 signatories
Australia Must Act on AI Risks Now
To realise AI’s immense benefits, we must first confront its escalating risks—starting now.
Published 24 March 2025
The next government will shape whether AI becomes a powerful force for good or causes catastrophic harm. Australia needs swift and globally coordinated action to address the risks of AI so Australians can fully seize its opportunities.
We can fly with confidence because we know airlines are subject to robust safety standards—the same should be true for AI.
Therefore, we call on the Australian Government to:
- Deliver on its commitments by creating an Australian AI Safety Institute. While massive investments are accelerating AI capabilities, there is minimal funding dedicated to understanding and addressing its risks. We need independent technical expertise within government to join global AI risk research, and help ensure regulation and policy meet Australia's needs.
- Introduce an Australian AI Act that imposes mandatory guardrails on AI developers and deployers. The Act should ensure that powerful AI systems meet robust safety standards and clarify liability for developers and deployers.
AI development is already rapid, can be unexpected, and will have significant consequences for Australians. AI stands to fundamentally transform our society, economy, and democracy – for better or worse. Australians expect our government to take the widespread implications of AI seriously, to work with the global community to ensure AI is well governed, and to be adaptable in protecting us from AI risks while enabling us to realise its benefits.
We, the undersigned, call on the Australian Government to make AI safe before it's too late.
Signatories
Note: Signatories endorse only the core letter text. Footnotes and additional content may not represent their views.
Prof. Michael A. Osborne
University of Oxford
Professor of Machine Learning
Co-author of well-known paper "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?" co-authored with Carl Benedikt Frey in 2013.
Dr. Toby Ord
Oxford University
Senior Researcher
Author of The Precipice
Senator David Pocock
Independent
Senator for ACT
Prof. Huw Price
University of Cambridge
Emeritus Bertrand Russell Professor & Emeritus Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge
Co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk and former Academic Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, Cambridge
Bill Simpson-Young
Gradient Institute
Chief Executive
Australia's AI Expert Group, NSW's AI Review Committee
Prof. Terry FlewFAHA
The University of Sydney
Co-Director, Centre for AI, Trust and Governance
Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow
Prof. Robert SparrowPhD
Monash University
Professor of Philosophy
Author of more than 50 refereed papers on AI and robot ethics
Prof. David Balding
University of Melbourne
Honorary Professor of Statistical Genetics
FAA
Dr. Peter SlatteryPhD
MIT FutureTech
Researcher
Lead at the MIT AI Risk Repository
Dr. Alexander SaeriPhD
The University of Queensland | MIT FutureTech
AI Governance Researcher
Director, MIT AI Risk Index
Dr. Gnana K BharathyPhD
Australian Research Data Commons, University of Technology Sydney
AI/ ML Research Data Specialist, Researcher, Practitioner
Dr. Tiberio Caetano
Gradient Institute
Chief Scientist
Assoc. Prof. Michael NoetelPhD
The University of Queensland
Associate Professor
Dr. Ryan Carey
Causal Incentives Working Group
Fmr AI Safety Lead @ Future of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford
Prof. Richard DazeleyPhD
Deakin University
Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Researcher in AI Safety and Explainability
Prof. Paul SalmonPhD
Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems, University of the Sunshine Coast
Professor
Australia's discipline leader, Quality and Reliability, 2020 - 2024
Dan Braun
Apollo Research
Lead Engineer/Head of Security
Dr. Marcel Scharth
The University of Sydney
Lecturer in Business Analytics (Machine Learning)
Dr. Tom Everitt
Google DeepMind
Staff Research Scientist
Dr. Ryan KiddPhD
MATS Research
Co-Executive Director
Co-Founder of the London Initiative for Safe AI
Prof. Richard Middleton
The University of Newcastle
Emeritus Professor Automation, Control and Robotics
Dr. Simon O'Callaghan
Gradient Institute
Head of Technical AI Governance
Co-author of Implementing Australia’s AI Ethics Principles: A selection of Responsible AI practices and resources
Prof. Peter VamplewPhD
Federation University Australia
Professor, IT
Assoc. Prof. Zongyuan GePhD
Monash University
Director of AIM for Health
Dr. Alberto Maria Chierici
Gradient Institute
Entrepreneur and AI Specialist
Author of "The Ethics Of AI: Facts, Fictions, and Forecasts"
Dr. Thom DixonPhD
National Security College, Australian National University
Expert Associate
Member of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology
Dr. Paul LessardPhD
Symbolica
Principal Scientist
Author of Categorical Deep Learning
Dr. Hrishikesh DesaiCFA, CMA, EA
Arkansas State University
Assistant Professor of Accounting
Director of the Master of Accountancy with Data Analytics Program
Assoc. Prof. Simon Goldstein
The University of Hong Kong
Associate Professor, AI & Humanity Lab
Dr. Aaron SnoswellPhD
Queensland University of Technology GenAI Lab
Senior Research Fellow
Harriet Farlow
Mileva Security Labs
CEO and Founder
Soroush Pour
Harmony Intelligence
CEO
Dr. Daniel Murfet
University of Melbourne
Mathematician, Deep Learning Researcher
Dr. Dan MacKinlay
Research Scientist, AI for Science
https://danmackinlay.name
Greg Sadler
Good Ancestors
CEO
Dr. Jamie Freestone
Australian National University
Philosopher
Nakshathra Suresh
AI & Cyber Safety Expert
Co-founder of digital safety consultancy eiris
Dr. Lorenzo Pacchiardi
Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge, UK
Research Associate
David Quarel
Australian National University, Cambridge University (Fmr.)
PhD student, Research Assistant (Fmr.)
Jess Graham
The University of Queensland
Senior Research Coordinator
Dr. Andrew Childs
Griffith University
Lecturer in Technology and Crime
Matthew Farrugia-Roberts
Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford
Clarendon scholar
Dr. Daniel D'Hotman
DPhil AI Ethics, University of Oxford
Chief of Staff, Convergence Labs
Rhodes Scholar, Australia-at-Large (2019 & Brasenose)
Assoc. Prof. Tolga Soyata
George Mason University
Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
James GauciMBA
Cadent
CEO
Immediate Past Chair, IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) Australia
Buck Shlegeris
Redwood Research
CEO
Joshua Krook
University of Southampton
Research Fellow in Responsible Artificial Intelligence
Dr. Cassidy NelsonMBBS MPH PhD
Centre for Long-Term Resilience
Head of Biosecurity Policy
Matthew Newman
TechInnocens
Director & AI Safety Researcher
Contributor & Reviewer: Safer Agentic AI Foundations, IEEE P7XXX, Ethically Aligned Design
JJ Hepburn
AI Safety Support and Ashgro
Founder and CEO
Sign the Open Letter
Join experts, public figures, and concerned citizens in calling for the Australian Government to take decisive action on AI safety.