Data Centres

The artificial intelligence space is never ending, there is always so much to discuss.

Recently the conversation around data centres has been growing in Australia, especially about what regulations we have in place with the building of them. The federal government said a while ago that they were going to work with state and territories on creating consistent mandatory standards for data centres, but it feels like we’re just trusting politicians to not create a surveillance state at this point in time. There are a lot of ethical and social licence issues surrounding the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure and Western Australia currently has no dedicated data centre policy or regulations, so data centre planning applications and operations are managed under existing industrial frameworks. This means in many cases, applications can only be assessed as warehouses or general industrial uses. Questions are being raised on how governments can balance the possible economic benefits of data centres against their demands for energy, water and land.

In a world where AI is growing incredibly fast, how can we stay on top of protecting people from harm and whose responsibility is it?

Fiona Bartholomaeus chats with Dr Jacqui Boaks, Curriculum Lead with the Curtin Centre for Applied Ethics and Philosopher-in-Residence at the WA Data Science Innovation Hub.