Australian business and government have joined the global chorus warning about the risks artificial intelligence (AI) poses to humanity. But despite their fretful tone, the introduction of algorithms into Australian political life has been less apocalyptic and more business-as-usual. Changes to the Australian welfare system are a prime example. Punitive and difficult-to-access by design, the system is now best known for a disastrous algorithmic innovation nicknamed robodebt.

Robodebt was designed by the Liberal Party and high-level Australian public servants to ostensibly catch “welfare cheats.” It ran from 2016 until it was declared illegal in 2019. A royal commission into the now-infamous scheme handed down its findings last week. They were, unsurprisingly, scathing. The scheme relied on a rigid and flawed algorithm that erroneously issued threatening debt repayment notices to around half a million Australians. Over its short but catastrophic life span, robodebt resulted in deaths, suicides, impoverishment, housing stress, and mass trauma.

The fallout from the scheme and the commission’s predictable findings is ongoing. But the whole sordid saga has raised many questions. These relate not only to the corrupt and cruel behavior of politicians and the public service, but also to the uses and abuses of algorithms and AI in Australians’ working lives.