The Federal Government is responding to escalating concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright issue by establishing a reference group to address future challenges. The move comes amid a surge in scam reports and high-profile accusations against social media platforms for their alleged failure to curb deceptive content.

The reference group will engage with stakeholders across various sectors, including the creative, media and technology sectors. It is set to complement other AI-related Government initiatives, including the work led by the Minister for Industry and Science, Ed Husic, on the safe and responsible use of AI.

"AI gives rise to a number of important copyright issues, including the material used to train AI models, transparency of inputs and outputs, the use of AI to create imitative works, and whether and when AI-generated works should receive copyright protection," said Attorney-General, the Hon Mark Dreyfus, in a statement. "The reference group will be a standing mechanism for ongoing engagement with stakeholders across a wide range of sectors, including the creative, media and technology sectors, to consider issues in a careful and consultative way."

Establishment of the group follows a series of roundtables on copyright initiated by Dreyfus, where Government heared from more than 50 peak bodies and other organisations about copyright reform issues.

News of the group comes a couple of weeks after prominent Australian business man, Dick Smith, posted that a new deepfake video scam had come to light in which he is featured. Smith has been trying for over two years to stop Facebook from running scam ads using his identity. As reported in The Australian on 27 November 2023, one fraudulent video purports to be a news segment on A Current Affair and includes "interviews" between host Allison Langdon and Jim Chalmers, Mr Smith and billionaires Gina Rinehart and Andrew Forrest.

Smith described his shock at the sophistication of the scams after realising the scammers had lip synced new text and a new voice over the video footage.

In November, Australia's wealthiest individual, Gina Rinehart, took aim at Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of failing to address the proliferation of scams and 'deceptive content' on his social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram. Rinehart alleged she had been the target of over 750 scams on Facebook in recent weeks.

Rinehart's accusations were outlined in a personal letter on 9 November to Zuckerberg, which also represents the concerns of other high-profile Australians, including Smith and billionaire property developer, Harry Triguboff. Andrew Forrest and former Sunrise host David Koch have also initiated legal proceedings against social media platforms over fraudulent advertisements.

Australians reported a record $3.1bn lost to scams in 2022, an 80% increase from the previous year, according to the National Anti Scams Centre's report.