By Graham Readfearn
Publication Date: 2026-04-06 15:00:00
Conservationists and scientists have warned that a mining lobby proposal to use artificial intelligence to speed up national environmental approvals could lead to “Robodebt-style” failures and put threatened species at further risk.
The Minerals Council of Australia has asked the government to spend $13 million to test the use of AI to help companies prepare applications and help the federal government make decisions.
But the Biodiversity Council, a group of independent experts from 11 universities, told Guardian Australia that while AI could play a role in simple tasks, automating environmental assessments could “lead to Robodebt-style failure, with computers making flawed decisions without transparency,” which could ultimately lead to species moving closer to extinction.
Robodebt refers to the automated debt collection system that falsely accused hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients of overpayments between 2015 and 2019.
Lis Ashby, biodiversity…
