AI ‘on the cusp’ of changing Australia’s economy, says Mike Cannon-Brookes

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are the most promising technologies of 2020, according to Atlassian co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are the most promising technologies of 2020 and are on the cusp of having an incredible impact on Australia’s economy and society more broadly, according to Atlassian co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are the most promising technologies of 2020 and are on the cusp of having an incredible impact on Australia’s economy and society more broadly, according to Atlassian co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes.

“We’re at almost an ebb in those technologies, right before they start to become really impressive, inspirational,” Mr Cannon-Brookes told The Australian for the latest episode of the Forward Slash podcast.

“Atlassian uses machine learning in lots of different places to ­deliver better results for our customers. They don’t know about it, and nor should they, so we use a lot of large-scale data analytics and machine learning to look at huge pools of data, and try to deliver better answers to customers.

“Google is actually a giant ­machine-learning machine that gives you better search results with a whole lot of intelligence ­behind them. The ultimate customer experience of AI and ­machine learning is just better things; you don’t maybe realise and it’s not like it has a big sticker that ‘this thing comes with ­machine learning’, but I do think that is a really fervent place for experimentation and change and other things at the moment.

“It’s a really exciting area, and like most things, it’s tech being applied in tech first, and it will start being applied elsewhere at scale.”

Mr Cannon-Brookes said he was a “big fan of virtual reality” and recently bought an Oculus Quest headset to experiment with. Facebook released its Quest 2 headset this month.

“My nine-year-old is absolutely in love with the thing and it’s just amazing to watch him,” he said. “It’s a true sign I’ve become old — I thought I was pretty good at tech, and he is just like a duck in water. Like, just boom, just gets it. [It’s] totally normal to him.”

As for tech that he finds potentially scary, Mr Cannon-Brookes said facial recognition technology had the most potential for misuse, particularly by governments or large corporations.

The Australian Human Rights Commission is investigating the implic­ations of artificial intelligence as a matter of priority, ­including a focus on facial recognition, following criticisms that tech companies rely on algorithms that are inherently biased and entrench inequalities.

“Facial recognition rocks when I pick up my phone, right? It’s really good. The problem is if I can recognise millions and millions of faces at the same time, it gets pretty damn scary,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said.

“And in the wrong hands, the wrong government or corporation, that can be pretty bad. ­Regulating those outcomes, especially internationally, is very, very challenging. And we’re going to continue to be challenged by that as we have been in the past with other technologies.”

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