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‘Super intelligence’: Trump’s AI slapdown for Albo · The Front

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: From The Australian, here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, September 24, 2026. Our Prime Minister's collecting an
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: award for being a global citizen in New York today,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: even after an embarrassing slapdown from Donald Trump on what
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be a triumphant mission for artificial intelligence reform.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: The Albanese government's going to call the bluff of artificial
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: intelligence companies who want us to trash copyright laws. That's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the vow from the government's AI evangelist, Andrew Charlton. But
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: even he is warning the coming data centre boom could
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: send all our domestic power bills soaring. Today, a huge
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: day in the AI revolution.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Artificial intelligence, here and after officially called super intelligence, changing
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: the name, the use of the word artificial makes intelligence fake.
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  Speaker 2: It makes it sound fake, and it is not fake.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: It's actually amazing, but we have to be careful. In
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  Speaker 1: New York, Anthony Albanese got a giant slapdown from Donald
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  Speaker 1: Trump on his bid to get global agreement on artificial
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  Speaker 1: intelligence regulation.
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  Speaker 2: The United States also totally rejects any attempt to construct
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  Speaker 2: a globalist scheme to control for the artificial intelligence being
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  Speaker 2: spoken of so much now.
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  Speaker 1: And a sideswipe on Australia's attempts to curb social media
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  Speaker 1: giants all consuming algorithms.
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  Speaker 3: It's not about giving government control. It's about giving people
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  Speaker 3: back control over what they receive on their devices.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: In Sydney, Albo's deputy sheriff on superintelligence, let's go with it,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: is Andrew Charlton. He used the Australian's annual forum, Energy Nation,
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  Speaker 1: to make a big vow.
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  Speaker 4: We are calling their bluff.
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  Speaker 1: Charlton was talking about the government's negotiations with AI giants
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  Speaker 1: like Anthropic. who say they won't even consider building giant
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: data centres in Australia if the government refuses to amend
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  Speaker 1: copyright law. Anthropic, like its peers OpenAI and Google, wants
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  Speaker 1: a special exemption from the rules that say if you
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: use someone's art or journalism or literature or music, you
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  Speaker 1: have to pay. They say they'll build data centres here
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  Speaker 1: in Australia, but only if they can train their bots
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  Speaker 1: by scraping all creative works for free.
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  Speaker 4: The Prime Minister outlined our principles on copyright and the
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: government is not budging one centimetre from those principles.
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  Speaker 1: Charlton is an AI evangelist. He believes we're on the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: cusp of an opportunity we'll never see again in our lifetimes.
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  Speaker 1: An instant fix to all Australia's problems. Sluggish productivity, low
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: foreign investment.
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  Speaker 4: At 2.3% of GDP, the data centre boom is three
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  Speaker 4: times bigger than the fibre optic boom of the 1990s.
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  Speaker 4: Twice as big as the national highway rollout in the
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: 1950s and 60s. 50% bigger than the electrification investment boom
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  Speaker 4: of the 1930s. You have to go back to the
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: 1880s and 1890s to find an equivalently sized infrastructure boom.
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: The railway boom of that period that transformed our economies.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: This is a massive change in our economy.
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  Speaker 1: The copyright issue is one thing, and that's a battle
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  Speaker 1: Charlton is having right now inside the government, with colleagues
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: like Attorney-General Michelle Rowland and the Prime Minister himself. They've
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: promised musicians and authors they won't sell out their copyrights.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: It looks like the government's leaning towards the kind of
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: model Europe has adopted. That is, creators can opt out
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: of having their content scraped by AI. But would painters
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and musicians really do that? Is it fair to put
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the burden on them? Can we trust AI companies not
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: to just steal their creations anyway? So why do we
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: want data centres here? You hear a lot of talk
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  Speaker 1: about sovereignty. Analyst Saul Kovonick summed it up like this
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: at Energy Nation.
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: It's ICU dispensation, dispensation of drugs in ICU and hospitals,
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: air traffic control, cyber security, defence. All of this is
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: run by data centres, right? And you cannot have that
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: data and that capability offshore. If we can't rely on
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  Speaker 5: our closest ally to provide digital and AI services to
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  Speaker 5: us in a crisis... It means we have to have
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  Speaker 5: that sovereign capability at home.
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  Speaker 1: Charlton thinks we have to insist that AI companies build
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  Speaker 1: their own energy generation so that they're not sucking power
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  Speaker 1: out of our grid and that we have to move
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  Speaker 1: incredibly fast, much faster, let's be honest, than Australia's ever
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: moved on anything. In the room at Energy Nation were
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: all the country's biggest names in gas, renewables and every
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  Speaker 1: other form of energy. and you could almost hear them
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  Speaker 1: raising their eyebrows. It takes years to get any kind
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of energy project approved here. Communities are still blowing up
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  Speaker 1: about transmission lines and wind farms. So even if the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Albanese government can somehow sweep past local councils and angry
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  Speaker 1: communities and approved data centres across the country, can they
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  Speaker 1: really bring with them the vast amount of power generation
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  Speaker 1: they're going to need? Charlton is optimistic.
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: The investment is coming. We have a choice, whether we
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  Speaker 4: allow that investment to strengthen the grid or to strain it,
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  Speaker 4: whether it puts upward pressure on power bills or helps
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  Speaker 4: us exert some downward pressure, whether it builds Australian capability
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  Speaker 4: or merely consumes Australian power. The choice is not predetermined.
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: It will be made by the rules we write now
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  Speaker 4: and we are determined to right them well.
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  Speaker 1: But he also has a warning. If we don't get
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  Speaker 1: this right, Australians' power bills will go through the roof,
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  Speaker 1: as has happened in some American communities.
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  Speaker 4: I think we have a lot to learn from the
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  Speaker 4: American experience, as I said. I think there are places
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  Speaker 4: in the United States where they've got it badly wrong,
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: and households have paid the price for that. Higher electricity bills,
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: restricted access to water, negative impacts on local communities. And
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  Speaker 4: you can see the consequences of that. The consequences of
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  Speaker 4: that is a huge loss of social licence from the
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  Speaker 4: data centre industry.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Coming up, Queensland blazes its own trail on AI. In
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  Speaker 1: the middle of a summer day in Queensland, the sun
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  Speaker 1: is blazing and the state's rooftop solar panels are generating
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  Speaker 1: vast quantities of energy, much more than is needed to
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  Speaker 1: power home and office air conditioning. That's just part of
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  Speaker 1: the reason why Queensland would be insane not to welcome
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  Speaker 1: the advent of data centres that could be using that power.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Here's Premier David Crissifulli at Energy Nation.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: Our energy story is real, and we put it down
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  Speaker 3: to three words. Affordable, reliable, sustainable. And you can have
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  Speaker 3: all three, and we've proven that.
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  Speaker 1: The Premier's walking tall after staring down Federal Climate Change
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: and Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Bowen tried to insist all
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: AI data centres must be fuelled by renewables. Chris Foley
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  Speaker 1: and Northern Territory Chief Minister Leah Fenocchiaro insisted coal and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: gas had to be allowed, and the Prime Minister gave
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: them exactly what they wanted. It seems to be working.
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  Speaker 1: Anthropic has already signed up to be part of a
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  Speaker 1: $ 32 billion data centre project in Queensland's Western Downs, just
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  Speaker 1: northwest of Toowoomba, to power its bot, Claude. Western Downs
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  Speaker 1: will be powered by gas, coal, wind, solar and batteries.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: We're not going to give people a free pass. Now,
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: we are very open for business government. We really are.
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  Speaker 3: But I look at it this way. We've got a
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  Speaker 3: young fleet of coal-fired power stations. We've invested very, very
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  Speaker 3: heavily in them, and they're working well. On the back
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  Speaker 3: of it, we've got a whole heap of energy in
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  Speaker 3: the middle of the day that, quite frankly, isn't being used,
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  Speaker 3: certainly to its capacity. We can use that as a
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  Speaker 3: way of making sure that we can incentivise getting people
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  Speaker 3: there and then build the extra capacity for the peaks
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  Speaker 3: that you need. That takes away those waves. It makes
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: it a lot more seamless. And on the back of that,
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  Speaker 3: we genuinely believe we can get the new energy generation
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  Speaker 3: that is needed for an expanding population, and we can
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: get others to pay for it. And that means one thing,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: and that is constantly putting downward pressure on people's power prices.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: The Australian subscribers are the first to know about all
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the big scoops on energy, from dramatic power station closures
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: to bold new policy ideas. Join us at the