Historically, fines have not been the sole method of enforcing antitrust laws as they do not demonstrate long-term impacts. This is especially true for a multi-trillion-dollar organisation such as Google.

The one area where work is actually reasonably advanced on a complex and challenging area applicable to AI is the Office of the privacy Commissioner’s proposed biometrics code of practice.

Some good news arrived this week with the go-live for the National Data Platform, a common platform for national datasets that were previously scattered across the dozens of entities that have now been brought into the Health New Zealand - Te Whatu Ora fold.

Our security agencies appear to be waking up to the fact that cyber threats from foreign states are a real and present danger to democracy and require more proactive measures to combat.

As more data is fed into AI-powered searches and chatbots, they may become more accurate. Until then, however, users should be careful about the reliability or independence of information sourced this way.