The full half of the cup: talking responsible AI on 10 News+

After joining 10 News+ with our client Novated Lease Australia, I came away thinking that the most useful conversation about AI leaves room for both optimism and caution.

AI has been getting plenty of negative press lately, so I was happy to present the full half of the cup (and fridge!) in a recent 10 News+ segment alongside our valued client Novated Lease Australia.

It was an opportunity to talk about what AI can make possible in everyday life and at work, while acknowledging the questions people quite reasonably have about it. Those two parts of the conversation belong together, particularly when the technology is changing this quickly.

Can we be optimistic and cautious at the same time?

When asked whether AI should be feared or embraced, Dr Andrew Charlton, Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy, made a point that resonated with me: both can be true at the same time.

You can see the potential for AI to make work easier and still ask difficult questions about privacy, accuracy and accountability. You can be excited by a new capability without assuming it belongs in every workflow. In fact, asking those questions is part of finding the applications that deserve to be used.

For businesses, that means getting specific about the problem being solved, the people affected and the checks needed along the way. A convincing demonstration is a useful beginning, but the real test comes when people have to rely on the tool in their day-to-day work.

Making more room for the human work

Novated Lease Australia offers a practical perspective on this. In their account of the segment, the team described an approach focused on reducing administrative work, improving customer experiences and giving employees more time for meaningful customer interactions.

That is the kind of opportunity worth exploring. When technology helps people spend less time on repetitive administration, it can create more room for listening, judgement and the conversations that customers value. The benefit needs to be visible in the experience of the people using it, as well as in the business case.

Responsibility has been part of our approach from the start

At Time Under Tension, we believe in high-impact, responsible AI. We developed our Responsible AI Charter before launching the business, because the way we use this technology matters as much as what we can build with it.

The charter covers transparency, fairness, sustainability, privacy, accountability and respect for intellectual property. Those principles give us a starting point for the practical decisions that come with designing AI experiences, including how people understand its role and who takes responsibility for the outcome.

This is one of the fastest periods of technological innovation any of us have experienced. Making something worthwhile of it calls for pragmatism, responsibility and creative thinking, along with a willingness to keep learning as the technology evolves.

Thank you to Samantha Butler, Kristy Lake and Bevan Guest for helping bring this conversation to a wider audience. I am glad we had the chance to show some of the possibilities, and to make the case for pursuing them thoughtfully.