View from The Hill: behind the cheesy smiles, Albanese and Trump couldn’t be further apart on AI and social media controls

Anthony Albanese was quick to put up a cheesy selfie with Donald Trump when the two rubbed shoulders at the president’s reception for those visiting the United Nations for leaders’ week.

“Always good to catch up with @POTUS.

We spoke tonight on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly,” the prime minister posted.

The staged image of faces close, the hint of dialogue, belied the reality that this week has seen Trump and Albanese at odds about how the international community should be approaching AI.

And, while the prime minister is in New York, the US embassy in Canberra – which now has its Trump man in residence – issued a blistering attack on the government’s proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation, casting it as an attack on free speech, among other objections.

Albanese’s schtick during his time in New York has been how AI and social media need guardrails.

He’s highlighted Australia’s forward-leaning work in these areas, through its social media ban for under-16s, its proposed Digital Duty of Care legislation, and its advocacy of balancing the positives and risks when it comes to AI.

Australia was one of 19 countries plus the European Commission that issued a statement this week declaring: “To realise AI’s potential, industry, governments and society must act now to address the risks and strengthen the oversight – without widening the gap between countries in access to the benefits of AI”.

Albanese said Australia had played a “central role” in the statement.

Then the prime minister joined the French and Spanish leaders to launch the Coalition for Children’s Rights and Protection in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

Trump is having none of the concerns of many other leaders about where this technological revolution might take humanity.

In his address to the UN General Assembly he said: “The United States totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme of control for the Artificial Intelligence being spoken of so much now — hereinafter officially called ‘Super Intelligence’.

"America has never been a nation that retreats from a frontier or shrinks from a challenge, no matter how great or how daunting that challenge may be.

Freedom was not a gift that Americans won easily.