PauseAI Australia Progress
2026 April
- Upcoming
- Help out with evergreen tasks
- Tell us what you did , or what you have cooking so we can support you!
- Released newsletter on how you get your MPs to sign Superintelligence Statement.
- Emailed all Liberal MPs and Senators advising them on x-risk.
- We attended the Canberra Innovation Network’s book launch event. Chief Minister Andrew Barr raised the importance of managing risk when deploying AI in government. Afterwards we spoke to the book author John Howard, who agreed that guardrails are essential when deploying AI.
Supported Australians For AI Safety in their open letter ”Activate existing biosecurity powers to address AI-enabled risks ”. Consider signing!
Ashley takes on volunteer role of Digital Marketing
2026 March
- 📧8 AI decisionmaker emails, meetings with 👥3 of them, 📅2 events with 25 attendees.
- Contacted 3 politicians about AI existential risk - can share more in the next few months!
- Reached out to COSBOA and Canberra Business Chamber about Australians’ trust in AI
- Took part in CAPaD’s Community Assembly in Canberra.
- Reached out to correct an error in The Daily Aus’ reporting on the Pentagon’s dispute with Anthropic .
- Released a vid on how Australia ignored the risks of AI at the India Summit and just talked about dividing winnings.
- Reached out to Matt Greg MP on AGI risks and the recent India Summit.
- Attended Parliamentary Innovation Showcase, spoke with representatives from OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon, Tech Council, KPMG and Australia’s former Chief Scientist Professor Chubbabout AI safety and x-risk. Got a few things cooking that we’ll share in coming weeks.
- Presented PauseAI’s position at the Careers in AI, AI Research & AI Safety event hosted by Responsible AI Development (RAID) & AI Safety Australia & New Zealand (AISANZ)
2026 February
- 📧76 AI decisionmaker emails, meetings with 👥2 of them, 📅3 events with 17 attendees.
- 📢Campaigned for Australia to prioritise safety at India’s AI Impact Summit
- 2 vids calling to action and suggesting the perfect Valentine’s
- 70 emails sent to policymakers, and 70 signatures on our petition , including to Minister Ayres and Assistant Minister Charlton.
- ✅Collaborated with 14 other countries, such as adding 4 Aussie experts to a total 40 international experts co-signing op-ed in France’s biggest weekly, Nouvel Obs
- Sent media release to tech journalists
- Postered in Canberra’s Civic, Tuggeranong, Woden, and Waramanga
- Hosted online and in-person workshops
- Publicly asked Senator Pocock how our government will deal with mass unemployment.
- ✅Publicly asked Andrew Leigh (Assistant Minister, MP) at his book event whether AI researcher predictions of existential risk mean we should have red lines for AI development, he said yes ! (43m 40s - 46m 20s)
- Reached out to politicians: Fiona Carrick MLA, Thomas Emerson MLA, Jessie Price MP candidate about AI existential risk.
- Reached out to organisations: ACT Conservation Council and ACT Greens about their datacentre policies.
- Asked Minister Orr about the ACT Government’s datacentre policy at the ACT Conservation Council townhall.
- Attended Melbourne’s presentation on Fixing Australian Philanthropy.
- Handed out flyers at University of Canberra’s Open Day.
2026 January
- 📧1 AI decisionmaker email, meeting with 👥1, 📅1 events with 10 attendees.
- Met with Deborah Morris MLA about AI misalignment, deepfakes and bioweapon risks.
- ⭐Milestone: 70 subscribers to our newsletter!
- ⭐Milestone: You are donating enough to cover our operating costs: insurance, web & email hosting, stall materials. We are all volunteers, so this frees us to plan more ambitious events!
- Mark rolls off as national co-director to focus on Melbourne scene, Peter steps up.
2025
Show 2025 activities
2025 December
- 📧3 AI decisionmaker emails, 📅1 event with 11 attendees.
- ✅Australian AI Safety Institute (AISI) announced! This was one of our 3 main policy goals. Two to go: international AI treaty, and AI guardrails.
- ✅Emails from PauseAI Australia volunteers and a question at a live townhall prompted five politicians to sign the Future of Life Institute’s Superintelligence Statement .
- Minister of Industry responds to petition EN7777 , declining to commit to mandatory independent safety evaluations nor to advocate for an international pause treaty, instead pointing to voluntary measures.
- We co-signed Urging an International AI Treaty: An Open Letter .
- We made a submission to the India AI Impact Summit working group for “Safe & Trusted AI”.
2025 November
- 📧2 AI decisionmaker emails, 📅1 event with 11 attendees.
- ✅Publicly asked Senator Pocock to sign Superintelligence Statement, and he agreed !
- 5 people from Australia participated in the PauseAI petition.
- Ran a stall at SouthFest. 34 people stopped for >1min chat, 2 submitted selfies to our photo petition.
- Ran a stall at the Canberra Organic Growers Society open day
- Ran a stall at EAGxAustralasia
- Attended the Bad Bots event at the National Archives.
- We discussed the Superintelligence Statement with a major news outlet and referred them to prominent Australian signatories.
2025 October
- ✅On 7 October 2025, PauseAI Australia held a book launch and discussion event at Smith’s Alternative bookshop in Canberra to mark the release of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies . Laura Nuttall, MLA, and Peter Cain, MLA, joined the discussion and read excerpts from the book.
- Submitted the event to the National AI Centre’s events calendar. NAIC declined, citing “sensational or emotive language,” failure to use “plain language,” and “promotional or commercial content.” The event description summarised findings from the AI Impacts 2023 survey of 2,778 published AI researchers and listed activities. We asked NAIC for specific excerpts they considered misleading, and how a free community event differs from the paid commercial workshops listed on the same calendar. After three weeks and a second followup, NAIC replied: “We are not in a position to engage in back-and-forth revisions or provide detailed feedback on individual submissions.” Full correspondence
- We attended online the Australian Academy of Science webinar on “AI in science: the promise, perils and path forward – AI and our safety ”, publicly asking why they weren’t mentioning existential risk.
- We trialled car magnets
- Making It Official💍 After months of passionate collaboration, late-night strategising, and countless volunteer dates, the four of us take the next step in our relationship: We’re thrilled to announce PauseAI Australia is officially incorporated!
2025 September
- ✅e-petition EN7777 to the Australian House of Representatives was open for 30 days and collected 168 signatures. The petition asked the House to legislate that all future frontier artificial intelligence systems must pass rigorous independent safety evaluations, and further asked the House to advocate proactively for an international treaty to pause frontier AI development until global safety mechanisms are in place. The Minister gave an official response.
- In September 2025, PauseAI Australia responded to the interim report on Harnessing Data and Digital Technology with this submission . Volunteers also made individual submissions (David , Peter , Michael ).
- We attended the Tech Policy Design Institute’s Consultation on their draft AI Sovereignty Framework.
- We attended online the Prevention United workshop on their Youth Ambassadors Group’s brief Navigating Artificial Intelligence for Youth Mental Health , asking advice on how teens can deal with predicted catastrophic outcomes from AI.
- We ran a stall at the Kambah Spring Sustainability Fair, speaking to Laura Nuttall MLA (pictured) and Caitlin Tough MLA.
2025 August
- Met Caitlin Tough MLA and her advisor to discuss AI impacts on mental health & democracy.
2025 July
- ✅Volunteer Mark Brown brought OpenAI to the attention of the Australian Federal Police and the Attorney-General of Australia , alleging potential breaches of the Crimes (Biological Weapons) Act 1976. It was discussed in a news story and on a video podcast .
- Met Laura Nuttall MLA to discuss researcher predictions of extinction risk from future AI.
- Contacted Mark Parton MLA, who asked Minister Stephen-Smith & the Digital Canberra Directorate in a Budget Estimates Hearing about OpenAI’s admitting that their ChatGPT Agent could aid novices in the development of biological weapons.
2025 February
- ✅Volunteers in Melbourne protested the missed opportunity of the Paris AI Action Summit. The protest received coverage in the Nine newspapers.
2023
2023 February
- Protested in Melbourne at Sam Altman’s speaking event.
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