By ABC Religion & Ethics
Publication Date: 2025-11-24 02:49:00
On Thursday 20 November, Edward Santow delivered the Sir Vincent Fairfax Speech 2025, hosted by the Vincent Fairfax Scholarship. Santow is the co-director of the Institute of Human Technology and Professor of Responsible Technology at the University of Technology Sydney. This is a lightly edited version of that speech.
Throughout history we have built machines that were born and fully formed like Venus. When a car rolls off the assembly line, all it needs to do is turn a key or press a button and it works as intended. This does not apply to artificial intelligence (AI).
AI systems start out as ignorant as a newborn, perhaps even more ignorant. A baby looks for its mother’s breast before it can even see it. An AI system does not have a baby’s genetic instincts. Nothing can be accepted. All knowledge must be learned. The process of learning an AI system – known as “machine learning” – involves exposing the machine to our world.
At least on the surface…
