Sinéad Gibney
Dublin Rathdown · Social Democrats · Ireland
“Unfortunately, those are still not entirely clear. Although the Windsor Framework did look to enshrine that policy of no diminution of rights and the non-divergence of rights on either side of the Border, that has not been clear in how it is going to play out.”
“I want to raise one specific sector. Within my portfolio, the culture sector is a good example of where we could see a much better offering in the joining together of the two economic activities. For example, we have a very vibrant production sector for film and television.”
“The other word that is important to bring into any economic discussion and fiscal discussion around a united Ireland is "holistic" because, unfortunately at times, I see the Government looking at the economy as a discrete part of society and neglecting things that fall outside of economic discussion, economic imperatives, and policymaking…”
“There are ways that we can see how our governance of this jurisdiction can be improved simply by the opportunities that will be presented by opening up constitutional change and the discussions that we are all going to have about how we govern ourselves right now and how we may govern an entire island of Ireland.”
“When the Minister of State referred to office roles in Brussels, was he describing roles in NATO headquarters? The international forces the Minister of State is describing are exactly like the coalition that invaded Iraq.”
“I look forward to coming back to the topic of the triple lock in a few questions' time. I have read with extreme concern the reports over the past week on the lack of support provided by the Department of Defence to Women of Honour, whose members are participating in the Defence Forces tribunal.”
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“A public model ensures costs are brought down and can be set at a genuinely affordable rate. This is not a radical idea. It is something most European countries have. However, the work does not stop just with costs. We do not just need a more affordable system; we also must invest in capacity. If we rely solely on private operators, we will be unable to ensure we have the capacity planning to provide enough spaces in the system to meet the need in our communities. Childcare is a public good. It is necessary to our society and it provides vital early years education to our children. We need to treat it as such.”
“This crisis is pushing parents out of the workforce, adding stress to their lives and pushing down their incomes in what is already a cost-of-living crisis. Even when they can gather the money they need to pay the exorbitant costs, closures and a lack of spaces have meant many parents cannot secure a place for their child. They are caught between a rock and a hard place. Without a public system, this is what we get, namely, a service with not enough capacity and that is hugely expensive. We in the Social Democrats have been clear about what needs to be done. A public model of childcare must be delivered as a matter of urgency. We must see fees come down and certainty for parents that if they secure a crèche place, they can rely on it being there next year and that they will not be hit with skyrocketing costs.”
“Today, my area of Dublin Rathdown has the most expensive childcare in the country. Since becoming a TD, countless parents have contacted me at their wits' end trying to find and pay for childcare or worrying about losing their child's place. Childcare providers in Carrickmines, Dundrum and all across my constituency of Dublin Rathdown have pulled out of the Government funding scheme because they just could not make it work with the cost of rent and other overheads. That means parents across Dublin Rathdown are not even able to benefit from the rates under the childcare scheme, which are a far cry from the €200 cap promised in the general election and the programme for Government. Instead, many are paying more than €2,000 a month to keep their children in crèche, which is, in effect, a second mortgage.”
“I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. I am always happy to speak to childcare because, particularly as someone who raised my daughter alone, I know how important childcare is for gender equality and for families across this country who are just gasping for it at this stage. The other issue that stands out from my own experience is that having paid for childcare in the early 2000s for my daughter, who was a millennial baby and is an adult woman now, I see that the crisis has not improved and has, in fact, only deepened. It is yet another crisis that has been stood over by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. Back then, I was paying the equivalent of a second mortgage for my daughter's childcare, although I could not afford a mortgage at the time.”
“The only way that will happen is if we have public trust in the technology and the only way we will get public trust in this technology is with the appropriate regulatory framework. This Bill does not deliver it.”
“I just had a quick search through the legislation. It has the word "ethics" in it five times and the word "responsible" twice. That is in different contexts but the point is whether "ethical and responsible" is such a novel phrase. I do not think so. The response from the Minister of State, which was essentially "Computer says 'No'", does not stand up regarding the idea of including "ethical and responsible" when, as she can hear, there is plenty of support for such a phrase. It would introduce the balance we are seeking. That is a shame. I support Deputy Lawlor's amendment because the climate concerns relating to AI are very, very deep, and the text of this existing legislation does not account for it appropriately. I am very clear that I want to see AI developed in society and I want to see the benefits it can bring to society.”
“These are simple amendments that can enhance this legislation. I am guessing by the tone of this debate so far that none of these amendments will be accepted by the Government. It is not just this debate but the whole evening - we are in the sixth hour of supposed debates - is just theatre for the Government. We get to discuss these amendments and, as Deputy Murphy said, it becomes like Second Stage because we are all just speaking in the knowledge that we will not get to the substantive amendments we want to deal with and engage with. I put these forward in good faith and I hope the Minister of State will engage with them.”
“I cite the example of the Inspector of Prisons and IHREC, which has issues with codes of practice. There are so many ways in which the work of these agencies as regulatory bodies is hampered because the publication powers they have are not adequate. If we actually want a regulator with teeth who will be able to call out issues when it wishes to, we need to provide it with publication power to do so. Again, all it is doing is strengthening independence. If the Government actually wants an independent regulator that is able to deal with the responsibilities that it is trying to give it, then it needs to give it the powers to match. That is what the amendment tries to do. It simply enhances that publication power. I hope these amendments can be taken in the spirit in which they are intended, which is constructive.”
“I move amendment No. 2: In page 13, line 34, after “foster” to insert “ethical and responsible”. These are examples of constructive amendments. Amendment No. 2 seeks to bring in a balance where by adding the phrase “ethical and responsible” so that it changes the remit of the office from fostering AI innovation and literacy to fostering ethical and responsible AI innovation and literacy. That is an example of the kind of balance we are looking for and that we have lip service paid to all the time but that has never been demonstrated as a meaningful commitment by this Government. Amendment No. 3 enhances the publication powers for the AI office. This is an issue with many State agencies that have a regulatory function. They are prohibited from publishing their findings.”
“That in itself is already a conflict, which I have a difficulty with. The AI office should be distinct. The Data Protection Commission has better independence than this body, which is being set up now. The Minister of State mentioned the Data Protection Commission, which is under the aegis of the Department of justice, and Coimisiún na Meán, under the aegis of the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, and now we have this one under the aegis of the Department of enterprise. The other two already do not work, because Grok happened and nothing has been done to combat it. We are now creating a third leg to this bonfire. It just makes no sense and it certainly does not strengthen any independence.”
“Deputy Ó Cearúil got a letter. I did not get a letter. I have received no engagement in this process. My issue is that the Minister of State is not listening. She is not understanding what we are trying to say, and that independence is key. All of the other market surveillance authorities she is mentioning, and the fundamental rights bodies identified through the AI Act and the legislation as part of the structure are all well and good, but the AI office is the authority. By this legislation, it is essentially a part of the Department of enterprise. The Minister can interfere in it. The CEO cannot even come to a committee and comment on Government activities. That is not independent. Deputy Geoghegan referred to the dual role of this office, which is on one hand supposed to be the regulator and, on the other, supposed to promote AI.”
“Of course it is organic and we will have to revisit it over the years, of which there is no question, but this is the shot. This is the time we get to do it. We are offering genuine, researched, evidence-based amendments and they are not being heard. The Minister of State is not interested and she is offering a tiny amount of time to discuss complex legislation and a set of complex amendments, which demonstrates to me that she has no interest. It is great to hear that the Minister of State is sending letters out to everyone. I did not get a letter since Second Stage last week and I raised a number of concerns. I do not know if anybody else in the Opposition got any letters. It is great that Deputies Ó Cearúil, Byrne and Geoghegan all got letters, but I would have liked one too.”
“My issue is that this is where the independence starts or does not start when an office like this is established. Once again, I have done this. The Government can outsource this to the Public Appointments Service. It can detach the hiring body from the recruitment process by strengthening the role of the Public Appointments Service in it, and it has chosen not to do that. In fact, it has done the reverse, and it has given the Minister more authority for the appointment of the first chief executive officer. In those first five terms, the Government is going to establish and basically set in stone how that organisation operates. The level of influence of that first CEO is heavy for the future of the organisation. The Minister of State has talked about this not being dusted tonight, but this is legislation.”
“I have tabled a second amendment regarding the chief executive officer. It is clear on page 22 of the Bill, which states, "The Office shall have a chief executive officer". It talks about the Public Appointments Service recruiting the board, then states: (3) Notwithstanding subsection (2) , the Minister may, before the establishment day, designate a person to be the first Chief Executive Officer. (4) Where, immediately before the establishment day, a person stands designated by the Minister under subsection (3), the person shall, on that day, stand appointed as the first Chief Executive Officer for such period, not exceeding 5 years from the date of his or her appointment, as the Minister may determine. The Minister then gets to appoint the first chief executive officer.”
“To treat it as an enterprise issue and the governance as an enterprise-informed operation and mechanism ignores all that. What we get from Government instead is it saying we have to protect rights. It says that at the end of the sentence after talking about balance and consideration but the issue is it is not doing it. These amendments try to strengthen that independence that will ultimately help with that balance and bring in the competence about rights and protections.”
“I have been critical from the outset that the entire approach of this Government and officials in Brussels, and indeed the Brussels mindset, is that we regulate AI through the lens of industry and business. That is not good enough because it leaves out the competence we need to deal with the rights and protections that are under threat from AI. If we do all this with an enterprise lens, which is what this legislation does, we do not do that. We do not bake in the competence at the outset that we need to protect our citizens from the harms AI is going to inflict on us, which we see around us already. The algorithms we are all using, which are making us addicted to products and which are prompting chatbots to push people towards suicide, are the harms AI is wreaking on society.”
“There is a bang of window-dressing off it at times. Obviously it was moved and developed because there was criticism of the fact that Ministers in the past were cherry-picking appointments at board level across many State agencies. Regardless, it is better at least than direct appointments by the Minister. It is important we use the mechanisms that are available to us in the Public Appointments Service to appoint board members and these amendments set out to do exactly that and to make sure we can do that. Also, rather than the Minister having that oversight, other parts of the amendments in this grouping allow for the Government to do it rather than the Minister, which again allows for that increased independence.”
“Although the Minister of State said in her statement she appreciates the independence of the office, that this is reinforced by it being a stand-alone body, etc., there are multiple clauses in the Bill that go against that. We will speak later to the fact the Minister gets to appoint the first CEO without any involvement by the Public Appointments Service and the fact the CEO cannot comment on government policy. Besides that, the appointment of the board itself should strive towards the greatest level of independence. These amendments try to essentially put in place a gold standard through the involvement of the Public Appointments Service, as distinct from the Department, so the office can act on its own. I am familiar with the State boards process. I have issues with the process as it stands.”
“Instead it went through pre-legislative scrutiny at the enterprise committee and now it is being rushed through the Dáil even though the Government has known it is coming down the track for years. I am genuinely disgusted at how this is being handled. It is a travesty of democracy that this is all the opportunity we get to discuss it. My amendments in this grouping are amendments Nos. 1, 15 and 20. They speak to the Public Appointments Service process for the appointment of the board. A lot of these amendments, especially in the first half of the legislation, are to strengthen the governance of this office to make it more independent.”
“I established a State agency, which is arguably the most independent State agency. I was its inaugural director between 2014 and 2016 and later I led it for four years as chief commissioner. I have knowledge I can contribute to this. I worked in the tech sector for eight years. I have a lot to add. I sit on the AI committee and the culture, communication and sport committee where we regulate the tech sector. I attended the pre-legislative scrutiny at the enterprise committee and I could even see, between those three committees, the gulf in understanding. AI is technical, complex and we have learned a lot on the AI committee but we were not given the opportunity to engage effectively with this Bill.”
“I move amendment No. 1: In page 11, between lines 15 and 16, to insert the following: “ “Service” means the Public Appointments Service;”. This first set of amendments speaks to the establishment of the board but first I wish to address the parliamentary scrutiny, or lack thereof, of this legislation, which is so disappointing. It is 11 calendar days since the text of this Bill was published. We have had four Dáil sitting days and seven working days to scrutinise this absolutely crucial Bill. Providing 11 calendar days between publishing the text and enacting the law is not parliamentary scrutiny. That does not give us as members of the Opposition any opportunity to engage properly with this legislation and provide for amendments. It is a disgrace. I have valuable insights and I want to work on the governance of AI.”
“Again, having been in a body where these functions are designated to you and assigned to you, rarely are they matched with the resources needed to do the job. We need to make sure that those fundamental rights bodies that are listed in Article 77 have the actual resources to do their job well. I have a range of amendments submitted and I look forward to discussing them on Committee Stage.”
“Basically it says that, because certain agencies will have greater powers in terms of independence, powers of publication and so on, they should then be able to co-ordinate bodies that do not have that same level of autonomy or independence. They may be further embedded into Departments, for example, but have quite specific roles to play because obviously, with the market surveillance authorities and the fundamental rights bodies identified within the Act, that is going to be the case. As there will be a mixture of independence and autonomy within each of those agencies, making that co-ordinator as independent, autonomous and well resourced as it can be to do its job is absolutely crucial.”
“I hope we can address this gap as the Bill proceeds through the Houses as it is absolutely vital to ensure that businesses, citizens and regulators have certainty on where they stand, how investigations proceed and who is in charge of those investigations in each case. On that last point, it might be helpful for the Minister of State and her officials to have a look at the national preventive mechanism, NPM, structure. It is not actually legislated for here in Ireland yet. This is for the optional protocol to the convention against torture, OPCAT. It is actually quite a similar model where there is a co-ordinating body at the top and then that is co-ordinating sectoral inspectors. The legislation will eventually come in here in Ireland but there is a similar model in New Zealand that the Minister of State can examine.”
“We also need to see clarity when it comes to the remit and co-ordination of market surveillance authorities and fundamental rights bodies because I understand and appreciate the reasons for adopting a distributed approach to the implementation of the EU AI Act but as others have mentioned, this approach is only effective when the national co-ordinating body, the AI office, can act as that co-ordinator effectively, that is, when it can mediate disputes between bodies where there are competing investigations and ensure smooth co-operation between the bodies involved. This is something that was flagged during pre-legislative scrutiny and which I am disappointed to see was not addressed in the Bill itself.”
“We, as a State, and particularly as a country where a lot of AI and tech companies are based, should be pushing for these safeguards for our citizens to be introduced and bedded in as soon as possible. With deepfakes, AI scams and more already affecting people, we cannot let these extremely powerful business interests have their way when it comes to the current status quo of no regulation, light-touch regulation and, in some cases, even self-regulation.”
“There are high-risk systems already in use that should not be there and waiting for legislation to catch up is just not okay. Under the digital omnibus plans that the Government has said it supports, we will be waiting another year until the regulations on these systems apply. That means we are essentially inviting companies to enter their products into an unregulated space within the next year before the regulation kicks in in 12 months' time when we will have rushed products and where developers' own safety processes will be rushed. These are not simple, harmless products. They are explicitly the type of AI product which poses a high level of potential risk to our fundamental rights and safety.”
“These are very basic and straightforward infringements on the potential independence of the AI office under this Bill. We have a myriad of examples of agencies and bodies in this State where these constraints are not applied and we see the benefit in ensuring accountability, boosting public confidence and giving us all clarity when it comes to legal and policy areas that need work. I want the perspective of those working in regulating AI to inform wider society, us included, but that is not possible if they are explicitly prohibited from sharing their perspective. Next, I wish to speak to high-risk systems and ensuring that dangerous products are taken off the market. I welcome that we will eventually have a clear way of dealing with high-risk AI systems, but we need to be able to reflect reality.”
“However, in my reading of this Bill I do not see how that can be the case because if we are serious about having an effective AI office and an effective administration of the AI Act, we need to address the gaps and deficiencies in this Bill and I hope we are able to discuss the constructively on Committee Stage. The idea that the Minister can instruct the office to act as he sees fit, even with carve-outs for specific enforcement matters, undermines that independence. We cannot have an effective, independent State body that must provide clear and evidence-based views and guidance on the regulation of artificial intelligence that is not permitted to comment on Government policy when asked by Members of these Houses at Oireachtas committees.”
“This is not for a caretaker or interim period before permanent appointments can be made; it is for the full five-year term. If we want independence, transparency and due regard for all sections of society that are impacted by the proposed remit of the AI office, we cannot have all that power and discretion over the people who will shape the direction and the governance of the office resting solely with the Department of, or the Minister for, enterprise. I have concerns over that control within the Department because I have been reassured time and again by the Government that the AI office will be wholly independent.”
“I understand what that independence looks like and how it can make bodies so much more effective. I raised this in committee but I also encourage the Minister of State's Department to look into the Paris Principles as essentially a gold standard in independence. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is the only agency in the State that applies the Paris Principles and that is because it is a UN accredited body, but there is no reason we cannot apply those same standards to other bodies. As it stands, this Bill suggests that the first board and CEO be appointed by the Minister for enterprise with little reference to any binding recommendations from the Public Appointments Service or procedures in the appointment to safeguard independence from the beginning.”
“I have spoken at length about the importance of the AI office as a regulator having the appropriate independence and resources to operate. That means it can act appropriately in its functions and that it is insulated from potential corporate capture, like we saw with the environment agency in the UK, or pressure from those it seeks to regulate. It needs independence from the Government like other regulators in this country. Its board and leadership must be appointed in a transparent manner and we cannot have a situation where such a vital piece of our regulatory framework - a framework that affects all parts of Irish society - is shaped wholly by the wants and interests of the Department of enterprise. I was the head of an independent State agency.”
“The EU AI Act applies from August and we have had years of lead-in time to legislate for that application but yet this 106-page Bill was published late last week and the deadline for amendments for Committee Stage was this morning at 11 a.m. We have to get legislation like this right and to do that we need proper parliamentary scrutiny in the establishment of new State bodies and a complex framework of regulation. We need a process that will create space and time to identify key improvements for this Bill. That is extremely difficult to do when legislation is rushed through these Houses in the manner we are seeing right now. Governance and independence of the AI office is something I have commented on a lot. I will continue to work on it throughout the passage of this Bill and it pertains to the bulk of the amendments I have put forward.”
“It has moved what could have been more promising legislation back towards light-touch regulation and that is a problem. I appreciate that there were a couple of carve-outs at the last minute, which meant that the digital omnibus was not as negative as it could have been. Nonetheless, I think it has cut the AI Act at the knees before it has even started to get going. That is a real shame. Specifically on the Bill, I want to talk about some of the amendments I have submitted, which we will get a chance to discuss further on Committee Stage. While it is obviously welcome that we are legislating for artificial intelligence, I note it is disappointing that such vital and important legislation is being rushed because of what I can only call inadequate advanced planning.”
“As long as that is the case, we will have issues with it. I encourage the Minister of State and I will give her my copy of a brilliant book by Bruce Schneier titled Rewiring Democracy , which really helps to unpick this. It is a brilliant piece of work by a cybersecurity expert. I have quoted it a few times as it is such a helpful book. It is a very positive take on it and it says how this is technology that can be good in society but it will only ever work if we trust it. Otherwise, we will see a complete divergence between people paying to have technology they can trust and the rest of us swimming around in the cesspit that the Internet is increasingly becoming. Before I go into specifics of the Bill, I want to touch on the AI Act and the digital omnibus because I do not support the digital omnibus.”
“There is so much benefit that we can bring to society that we can all enjoy. I have said before that algorithms are not bad things. Algorithms are bad at the moment because they are designed to keep our eyes on the screen and to addict us to the products, but they are just a maths equation. If we instead were able to repurpose those algorithms to promote well-being, equality, employment, whatever it might be, whatever the social difficulty is that we are tackling at any given time within a jurisdiction, we can actually harness these tools for good social impact. We will never be able to do that as long as the control sits in the hands of so few people who are entirely motivated by profit. Whatever the secondary missions of their companies might say, these are for-profit businesses with shareholders and all that involves.”
“This control and power means that we will always face this imbalance. We will always have to deal with a heavy regulatory framework to try to wrestle back that control, but there are other ways we can do so. We need to open that conversation and be honest about it. Another thing we need to think about is the just transition. We talk about a just transition in relation to the climate but we need to add to that a digital component. We are dealing with a transformation in society because of the man-made climate change and we are also dealing with a transformation in society because of the technology we are developing. Beyond the governance, we also need to talk about it at that very fundamental, societal level. Here is the thing; if we trust AI and we actually build governance that is effective and good, there is so much to harness.”
“It does not balance effectively the rights and protections that we need to bake in to the governance of this technology. Every time I hear a Government spokesperson, they speak about those things and say that the Government has to balance it with the protections, but nothing that is being done is convincing me that this is actually happening. I am sorry but it is just not coming through in the Government's actions. I mentioned power and this is really important. It is becoming more and more accepted that the control and power of this technology is in the hands of too few people and specifically in the hands of five or six tech broligarchs in the States. This group of people is pushing Donald Trump to lobby Brussels to deregulate so that they can have more access to the market. We have heard them say this. They do not hide this.”
“Adding to the digital omnibus, which is essentially what happened, the very specifics around nudification, is not enough, because it is not treating the fundamental issue around the business model of these tech companies and the control of power they currently have. I agree with other speakers who have mentioned that, unfortunately, the view of this Government, which is absolutely mirrored from Brussels, is a very industry-focued lens for the governance of AI. Everything is done through the prism of business and industry, competitiveness, enterprise and innovation. Unfortunately, that is not going to work. Establishing our AI office in the Department of enterprise is, to me, the first mistake we are making in that lens being applied to the development of this governance.”
“I keep being told that there is this overburdensome regulatory framework that people are trying to deal with and yet we have a clear scandal and this overly burdensome regulatory framework cannot seem to react to it in any level of real time. Maybe it will get there eventually but the reality is that we can still access these features. That is just an example of the whack-a-mole model the Government will be dealing with. Grok is one feature on one application on one platform. It abounds. We do not know yet; just like we did not anticipate nudification being the crisis that it became, we do not know where the next one is coming from.”
“I know the Minister of State's response was to be horrified, and rightly so, at what happened earlier this year when that feature became available. However, the reality is that this feature still exists. People can access it on their phones in this country using the right technology if they wish to do so. People can still nudify images. They can still promote child sexual abuse material and image-based sexual abuse using the technology that is made available to them by a private company. Nobody has yet been prosecuted, no sanctions have been levied and nothing has actually happened. I know there is a range of different responses in terms of inquiries, investigations, prosecutions and so on.”
“It should be that if labour is being displaced that actually we have more time as a species for leisure to actually get to do things and we get to value, for example, professions that are traditionally undervalued, like teaching or caring, which are things that cannot be automated and are predominantly done by women. That is an opportunity, but unless we acknowledge it and are honest about it, none of these things are going to happen. As is the case with so much of AI there is opportunity, but unless we are honest about the threats, we will not be able to harness that opportunity and I have major concerns about that. The last of the three categories that I would see as being evoked in this is the harms one. Grok was an example of that.”
“What automation has done so far is to turn various parts of our employment sectors into a gig economy and it is not to the benefit of workers. It might be to the benefit of innovation, competitiveness and profit, but it is not to the benefit of workers. Unless we acknowledge that there is going to be major labour displacement as a result of artificial intelligence and unless we are honest with ourselves as policy makers and the Government is honest with itself, then this is going to be an issue that will absolutely dominate the next ten years of politics. Within that for me one of the most important parts is that we do not have the structures for workers' rights in this country which allow us to deal with a crisis of this size. This is the thing. It should not be a crisis.”
“In fact, it is for me the definition of "head in the sand" that when I raise this, the stock response from Government is that it knows AI is going to disrupt labour, but actually it has the potential to augment - I think that is the word the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, used earlier - it as well, that it will improve jobs and we will have better-quality jobs and more critical thinking within our roles because all the automation and more mundane and tedious tasks will be done by technology. There is nothing in the path that has got us to this point so far that gives me confidence that this will be the case. It is automation which has transformed industries around us, like taxi drivers and delivery drivers more generally as well. None of it has been good for job security, job stability or for pay and conditions of those workers.”
“That is part of what is happening now and really why we are at such a critical moment right this minute of getting a handle on this and really getting control of it. The second huge category that artificial intelligence raises for me as a concern is in labour displacement. Only this morning I was speaking to the Minister of State, Deputy Dillon, about the Covalen workers and the broader picture of AI labour displacement in Ireland. We are not dealing with this.”
“The first one is the existential risk that we do not talk about it a lot in this Chamber. It has to be acknowledged that there are ways in which the technology is developing faster than not only regulators but even the engineers themselves can keep up with. We have seen headlines recently about this tipping point that we are currently getting to where AI agents can potentially start making decisions for themselves. They can start doing things which essentially contradict the wishes of the engineers who have developed that technology but are of a self-interest basis. That is the kind of dystopian world we see in movies and TV programmes and we do not really think it is ever going to happen.”
“The use of artificial intelligence is why algorithms are becoming more and more effective at making their products addictive. I worked in the technology sector between 2006 and 2014 and I remember someone telling me that some of the operations in the company I worked at went from a 5% level of automation to 95% during that period. It is the case that AI is powering the technology all around us and it is not just the robots, the more exciting stuff that people sometimes associate with it. It is powering so much of the technology that reaches deep into our lives and it really has such a broad range. Some of it affects us directly, some of it is hidden, some of it is clearly technology and some of it we do not even associate with that. For me there are three different categories of concerns this raises.”
“I am a member of the artificial intelligence committee, where we obviously discuss AI, and the communications committee, where part of our role involves the regulation of technology platforms. I am my party's spokesperson on enterprise, which is the area within which regulation of AI currently sits. In addition, data protection comes within the justice sphere. We are already in a very complex arrangement whereby a lot of different bodies and different perspectives are informing the discussion. I highlight this because in some people's mind, there is still a separation between technology in the form of online platforms and social media, for example, and AI. There is an idea that they are separate but that is no longer the case. In fact, AI is the only show in town. It has long been the case that it is powering the social media platforms.”
“Cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille seo. Tá sé thar a bheith tábhachtach go mbeidh na dlíthe cuí againn chun dul i ngleic le AI agus go mbeimid réidh le déileáil leis an teicneolaíocht atá romhainn. On behalf of the Social Democrats, I welcome the Bill and the discussion on Second Stage on the regulation of AI, as provided for in the Bill. Before speaking more specifically, including on some of the amendments I have already submitted, I will comment more broadly on AI and how it is impacting on our society. That is the basis on which we are trying to regulate its use. It is what is prompting governments and regulators around the world to deal with it. My first point concerns the definition of AI.”
“Instead, he was made to jump through hoops. He was given no clarity as to how the decision was being made. He was forced into decisions that he should not have had to make. It looks like a lot of these decisions are made in the planning part of the organisation rather than where they should be, which is in the artistic part of the organisation. Unfortunately, what this results in is that this art, which is such an important part of who we are, is relegated to construction hoardings and electricity boxes. This art is challenging, as it should be, and that is why we have to celebrate it. It is why I give a commitment to Joe today that I will do everything I can to resolve that and to work with my colleagues in Dublin City Council to make sure we acknowledge street art for what it is.”