In the next five to 10 years, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics will transform every sector of Australian society, from the cars we drive, the books we read, to the jobs we work.

Yet the two major parties in the federal election have failed to detail how AI will be managed, if at all.

It’s like ignoring the role of steam-powered machines during the industrial revolution. AI won’t just change the economy. It will change everything.

AI uses algorithms or mathematic models to analyse vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and make predictions or decisions. Most importantly, they can learn from new data.

This silence by our politicians is deeply troubling. They are more comfortable playing in the financial policy sandpit, taking about tax cuts and rebates, as the technological tsunami approaches.

Is it because they know AI will supercharge capitalism and leave labour in its wake or is it because many are too old to understand the ramifications?

It’s not all doom and gloom. AI will improve healthcare, especially in the early detection of disease and accurate interpretation of scans.

It will help to detect fraud, saving institutions and individuals from financial ruin. It will introduce new ways to combat cyber threats, ransomware, and viruses. It can already discuss and explain most subjects at doctorate level.

But a new super form of AI is on its way.

Pundits reckon around 2030, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) – modelled on the human brain – may be released. It will match or surpass human capabilities across most cognitive functions. It will make ChatGPT and DeepSeek look like child’s play.

One is right to be sceptical but Google, OpenAI and Meta are throwing everything at it.

AGI will change how the federal and state government bureaucracies operate. It will surge through the Australian financial sector, mining, the legal profession, HR (especially recruitment), the media, schools and universities, creating radical change and extraordinary efficiencies as it goes.

An AGI programmed factory will produce productivity levels greater than any human could possibly achieve at a much lower cost.

What if it redistributes power and prosperity away from people towards those controlling the data and making corporate decisions?

What if it destroys the labour market and democratic institutions? No one knows, least of all our politicians.

The future of AI technology is being taken out of American hands by China, which now leads the world in the development of robotics, producing around 250,000 robots per year.

China deploys AI to create ‘social credit’ scores for citizens. Social credit tracks and assesses the trustworthiness of individuals and businesses by monitoring and influencing behaviour through rewards or sanctions. Sound Orwellian? You bet.

China also uses AI for mass surveillance including the collection of biometric data and social media in real time, which it reports to China’s security services and the military.

In March, Australia’s AI experts called for the creation of an Australian safety institute and an Australian AI Act.

The federal government and its agencies have released a number of frameworks and discussion papers on AI may affect the public service but very little on how it will affect you and me.

Do we want AI to replace schools with screens? Do we want the news written by robots? Will it act as a substitute it for long-standing institutions—universities, governments and some of the professions?

Australians need progressive, technically informed policies grounded in action so technological advancements are used to benefit humanity rather than exclusively for private profit.

Most people in the western world today are better off than our ancestors because citizens and workers in earlier industrial societies organised and forced employers to share gains from technical improvements.

If our politicians remain transfixed like chook on a white line by tax cuts, petrol prices and housing, then Australians must organise and meet the AI issue head on. Remember, Noah built the Arc before it started raining.