23 September 2026

ALAN HAYES

 

UNSW and the University of Sydney have both in recent weeks signed agreements with OpenAI to roll out ChatGPT Edu, ignoring concerns from students and staff, who have been sounding the alarm over AI’s encroachment in higher education and have gone on strike over being steamrolled into the A.I. rush.

 

AT the University of Sydney, university management has failed to engage with the union on this agreement and has refused to budge on their demands for safeguards around the roll-out of AI in their enterprise agreement.

 

Major changes on campus should be decided by the people, who actually make up universities: the  students and staff. They should not be dictated by managers cutting closed-door deals with mega corporations.

 

The irony of university managers ignoring their academics’ advice to embrace corporations that profit from stolen knowledge won't be lost on most people, but in particular with those creators and authors who will have their intellectual property stolen.

 

Universities must be places of knowledge creation, critical inquiry, democracy, equity, and freedom of speech—all things that are antithetical to AI’s business model. Greed and profit no matter the cost to society!

 

It would appear those universities caught up in A.I fervour, are taking their cue from the Prime Minister and prioritising global tech giants over their won communities.

 

The Australian community have become extremely worried about the techno-fascist destruction of the environment, uncontrolled corporate power, and the social consequences of A.I.

 

What has now become particularly alarming is to see public universities—institutions charged with teaching and producing new knowledge—rushing to embrace these dangerous technologies through deals with some of the world’s biggest tech corporations.

 

Over a very short period of time, weapons, fossil fuel and other dirty industries have been using university partnerships to launder their reputations and gain legitimacy.

 

It's time the government stopped pandering to these AI corporations, banning them once-and-for-all from abusing and corrupting our public education and research.

 

Beyond the university

 

The fervour of A.I.'s money-for-nothing attitude is tantamount to nothing less than trying to blackmail our government into selling out on Australians and their intellectual property rights.

 

It's time the Albanese Government pulled their head out of the sand and realised that A.I.'s thirty pieces of silver have far-more-reaching dire consequences to secure unsubstantiated promises of wealth for the nation. They need to stand up to these bullies, but instead it seems they are secretly consulting on how to appease big tech companies at the expense of Australian artists.

 

Let's not forget that A.I. is an extractive industry. Big A.I. companies want to strip mine our culture for their profits and leave artists, creators and small businesses with nothing.

 

Meanwhile, as tech bosses within the industry warn that A.I. cannot be trusted to not end humanity, they are asking our government to give them free access to all of our content. Their audacity is not only gobsmacking, it's an insult to those creators who only ask, and rightly so, to be remunerated for using their property.

 

Australia has a robust copyright framework that ensures that creators have control over and get paid for their work. If AI companies want to use Australian content, they need to pay for it just like everyone else.

 

The Albanese Government needs to pause on A.I. for the benefit of our society. Albanese is not there for the whims of A.I. companies who have lost their social licence in America. It's time to remove the blinkers and see that these A.I companies are desperately trying to set up shop in Australia where regulations are weaker for their benefit only.

 

The Albanese Government has a duty of care to all Australians and must, without wavering, stand up to the A.I. bullies and put a moratorium on data centres to protect Australian artists, community and our environment. When I was a young man, it was called having a backbone!

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