“You need some guardrails, not tight regulation,” Lucio Ribeiro told Mediaweek in a conversation about AI and governance ahead of the InnovAItor this week.
InnovAItor, co-founded by the former Seven director of marketing digital and innovation, alongside Vijay Solanki, brings together corporate leaders, start-up innovators and tech enthusiasts to connect with thought leaders over the evolving AI landscape.
Ribeiro continued: “For some reason, we subscribe to this story that the tech guys can regulate themselves – Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg – they can’t. They have proven over and over and over, they can’t. These are the same folks in power right now.
“We need some element of guardrails, and I think Australia is doing quite well. The minister of technology Ed Husic is really at the forefront. I think he’s quite vocal about what’s happening.”
He noted that while Australia has Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics Principles, developing a framework needs progress because “change is happening too fast.”
Ribeiro said he was not only in favour of guidelines and regulations but of implementing rules and penalties. “You’re talking about data, information manipulation. There needs to be some guardrails, but not tight regulation that sucks the oxygen out of the innovation.”
Deepseek: ‘It is important, but it’s not the end of the world’
Deepseek, the Chinese-created AI chatbot released earlier this year, was the most downloaded freeware app in the US on the iOS App Store at the end of January. However, the program has caused “security concerns” among some countries, resulting in its ban on government devices in South Korea, Taiwan and Australia.
For Ribeiro, Deepseek and its machinations are a highly technical conversation but noted that through technology, the Chinese have demonstrated that they can do things faster and run processes efficiently.
“I don’t think this necessarily going to change the world. For technical people who understand these details, it’s a good milestone, but it’s not as big as it looks. It is important, but it’s not the end of the world or the beginning.”
Keeping up with AI breakthroughs
Looking ahead at breakthroughs in AI, Ribeiro suggested business owners look into investigating the impact of AI agents, a self-guided AI system that takes independent actions to achieve specific goals with no human, with no continuous human intervention.
He also suggested business owners help their workforce prepare to be prepared for AI conversations with customers who are AI-prepared.
“Imagine now, for example, you’re a travel agent and a customer comes to you, already done all the research on ChatGPT and probably has more research than you – let’s call it the age of the AI-informed customer.
“Businesses need to be looking to their workforce, primarily the ones in point of sales, and understanding the impact of the AI-informed customers, what that means for their business, and the second part about the impact of AI agents in their business. I truly believe it is a big challenge.”
Rare insights from OpenAI
Ribeiro’s insights come ahead of the upcoming InnovAItor event. The event will also feature a discussion with Mac Huffman, go-to-market director at OpenAI, for a fireside chat led by Riberio.
Attendees will have access to rare insights and the opportunity to dive deep into OpenAI’s playbook and learn how Australian companies can stay ahead in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
Ribeiro added that he hopes Huffman will give the attendees, as well as himself, guidance on the best utilization of OpenAI.
“I expect him to talk more about agents and impacting some of the categories, some industries. I expect the audience to raise their questions, and like half a dozen people walk away from the event with much better answers to some of the problems they’re trying to solve today.”
“I’d like to have a global view on the biggest use cases, category use cases right now. I want to know how people are using OpenAI for more creative tasks. I have a lot of experience in using it for operational and creative tasks. For me, it’s like an update about best practices and use cases because there’s a lot of noise.”
Top image: Lucio Ribeiro