LATIKA M BOURKE: Penny Wong says Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have shared interest in preventing AI arms race

Foreign Minister Penny Wong says it is in the interests of Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to limit artificial intelligence in the same way nuclear weapons were regulated to prevent the destruction of humanity.

Speaking to the Latika Takes podcast in collaboration with The Nightly on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Senator Wong likened the control of AI to that of nuclear technology and said frontier models were reshaping the dimensions of national power.

In New York, Australia joined the European Union, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Moldova, the Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, Turkey and the UAE in calling for AI to remain under human direction, oversight and control.

The leaders said AI must be developed and used in line with international law. They urged companies to develop transparent safety procedures that would include pre-deployment testing and third-party evaluations. They called for the creation of common standards and reporting across jurisdictions of serious safety breaches.

They said the UN should explore creating an international institution that would set standards and have the ability to convene states when AI crossed thresholds, as it has done in recent months, when several models have escaped test beds and launched cyberattacks and hacks on rival companies and other websites.

President Trump has been largely unconcerned with the destructive capabilities of AI and wants American companies to continue building models in order to win the technological race with China.

He will host Chinese President Xi, along with tech CEOs, for a state dinner at the White House on Thursday after addressing the UN on Tuesday. He touched down in New York on Monday night.

Asked if the two superpowers could be trusted to act on the concerns of middle powers, Senator Wong said it was in China and the United States’ interests to prevent the destruction of us all.

“I know that they’ll act in their own interests, but what I would say is it’s in their interest to create some limits. Just as it is in their interest to ensure some limits on the rollout of nuclear technology. Because we don’t want to create this destructive cycle which might be destructive for all of us,” she said.

“Surely no one wants to have technology which is untrammelled and countenance the risk of that to all of us.”

Asked what the middle powers urging the US and Chinese governments and companies to curb their own potential could realistically achieve, Senator Wong said smaller powers had to be pragmatic, but had a role to play.

“A lot of what you’ll see this week will be advocacy around that, pressuring companies and great powers to ensure there are limits,” she said.

“All of that is top of the agenda at these meetings here. But you’re right, we need, we need both. We need not just the middle powers, but we also need the US and China.”

“There are things that middle powers can do. There are things that great powers have to do, and there are things that companies have to do.

“And I think we can’t be completely binary about it by saying, well, unless you know X does Y, then we can’t do anything because that denies you any agency, but at the same time, you have to be pragmatic and say, well, we also need the companies and great powers to do these things.”

Speaking between bilateral meetings in New York, Anthony Albanese said Australia played a central role in the plea from the governments.

“We hope for a positive meeting between President Trump and President Xi. Other nations are putting forward their national interests, in the interests of Australians; in our case, Australians do want to know that artificial intelligence won’t be in control of us,” the Prime Minister said.

“We need to shape how it rolls out, rather than have artificial intelligence shape the way that our society functions.”

But Mr Albanese will not meet with either Mr Trump or Mr Xi in New York. He is likely to have a brief encounter with the US President at a reception on Tuesday night when Mr Trump hosts world leaders in New York.

But he will wait for a trip to China later this year to have formal discussions on the issue with President Xi.

Separately, Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, the EU, India and Kenya issued a joint statement reaffirming the importance of multilateralism. Mr Albanese began his day addressing a climate summit and ended it by addressing a Partners for Multilateralism summit at the UN.

It is his second appearance at the UN since first becoming Prime Minister in 2022. Last year, he used his debut at UNGA to announce that Australia would be recognising Palestine as a state, a move seen as a sign of protest against the Israeli government’s bombardment of Gaza.

Asked what that recognition had achieved one year on, Senator Wong said it had contributed to the establishment of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, which meets in New York on Tuesday.

“We were not the major player, but that led to a number of countries recognising the New York Declaration and President Trump convening and landing a peace plan for Gaza,” she said.

“That was important, but we need to see the peace plan implemented. We need to see Hamas disarmed and reform of the Palestinian Authority. I spoke to the Palestinian, um, foreign minister last week about this, so of course there’s a lot more work to do.”

Asked why Australia had not signed on to the UK-led sanctions against goods from settlers in the occupied West Bank, Senator Wong denied it was because she feared a political backlash from the Jewish community in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack.

“No. We don’t like to say we’re going to do something if we are not clear about how the practical implementation of this will occur. And there are a number of practical issues about blanket bans which I think the other states will work through, and I certainly will be interested to see how they do that.”

She said that everyone wanted to preserve the possibility of a Palestinian state and warned that the illegal settlements were ultimately harming Israel’s own interests and showed the Israeli government needed to change.

“It’s certainly the case that countries who have been the longest-standing supporters have been willing to move, including to recognise the state of Palestine.

“I mean the UK and Canada and Australia. And that says something about people believing that there has to be a pathway to peace.”

Senator Wong also rubbished long-standing speculation in Canberra that she is considering retiring at the next election, saying she was running for another six-year Senate term.

“I’ve made really clear last election I would serve this term and I would make a decision about standing again, and I’m gonna stand again, so there you go, I am, I am.”