How New Policy Changes Will Shape Your Digital Life

What's Happening Right Now

A new policy document from the United States has fundamentally changed the global approach to artificial intelligence development.

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This isn't about politics - it's about technology that will affect every aspect of your life within the next three years.

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The policy states clearly:

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More critically, the document mandates:

"the NIST AI Risk Management Framework to eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and climate change."

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What this means: The safety systems designed to prevent AI from discriminating against people are being systematically removed.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

When most people hear "AI," they think of ChatGPT or asking Siri a question. But AI is rapidly becoming embedded in the invisible infrastructure of modern life.

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Within three years, AI will be operating behind the scenes in:

• Banking: Determining your loan applications and credit scores
• Healthcare: Assisting with medical diagnoses and treatment recommendations
• Employment: Screening job applications and determining promotions
• Government services: Processing benefit applications and making eligibility decisions
• Education: Influencing educational opportunities and resource allocation
• Criminal justice: Informing policing decisions and sentencing recommendations

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Think of it like electricity - you don't see it, but it powers everything. AI is becoming the digital electricity of modern society.

How AI Amplifies Inequality: The Technical Reality

Here's what non-technical people need to understand: AI doesn't just mirror existing problems; it optimises for them.

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Consider how Instagram or Youtube works. If you accidentally click on conspiracy content once, the algorithm notices and starts feeding you increasingly extreme content because that's what drives engagement.

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AI systems work the same way, but for everything:

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In hiring: AI can ensure a human will never see your CV.
If past hiring favoured certain demographics, AI doesn't just continue that pattern - it perfects it, becoming more systematically discriminatory than human recruiters ever were.

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In healthcare: AI limits what treatment you are offered.
If historical data shows certain groups received different treatment, AI optimises those disparities, making them more systematic and harder to detect.

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In financial services: AI decides if you are worthy of loans, credit cards or store purchases. By finding increasingly sophisticated ways to discriminate, using proxy data that humans might miss.

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Unlike human bias, which can be inconsistent, can be challenged and is usually limited by how many people it impacts at once.
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AI bias has NONE of those limitations:

• Systematic and consistent across all decisions
• Faster and more efficient at discriminating
• Harder to detect and challenge
• Self-reinforcing over time

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The Language Divide: A Global Digital Apartheid

The scope of this challenge extends far beyond individual bias. We're facing a fundamental language inequality that affects billions.

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The stark reality:

• Over 7,100 languages are spoken worldwide
• English accounts for approximately 50% of all internet content
• Only 10 languages account for 80% of online content

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What this means:

If you speak Hindi (260 million speakers worldwide), you'll find only 0.1% of internet content in your language.

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If you speak Bengali, Swahili, or most Indigenous languages, your digital world becomes severely limited.

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AI systems are trained on this English-dominated data, meaning they inherently reflect Western, English-speaking perspectives and values.

Impact Analysis: Who Gets Left Behind

For Indigenous Communities Worldwide

Indigenous communities face compounded disadvantage:
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• Language erasure: AI systems trained on dominant languages accelerate the digital marginalisation of Indigenous languages
• Cultural invisibility: Traditional knowledge systems and cultural values become unrepresented in AI decision-making
• Service exclusion: Government and commercial AI systems may fail to recognise Indigenous names, locations, or cultural contexts
• Economic barriers: Reduced access to AI-enhanced opportunities in education, employment, and business

For Non-English Speaking Communities

Communities whose primary language isn't English face systematic digital exclusion:

• Information poverty: Reduced access to AI-enhanced information, services, and opportunities
• Economic disadvantage: Difficulty accessing AI-powered job platforms, financial services, and business tools
• Educational barriers: Limited access to AI-enhanced learning resources and educational opportunities
• Healthcare disparities: AI diagnostic tools and health information systems primarily optimised for English-speaking populations

For Specific Demographic Groups

Women globally: Risk of AI systems perpetuating gender stereotypes without bias mitigation frameworks, affecting hiring, lending, and healthcare decisions.

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Racial and ethnic minorities: Systematic algorithmic discrimination in criminal justice, hiring, healthcare, and financial services, with reduced oversight and correction mechanisms.

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People with disabilities: AI systems may fail to accommodate diverse needs without inclusive design requirements.

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Elderly populations: Risk of exclusion from AI-enhanced services due to interface design and technology access barriers.

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Rural communities: Limited representation in training data leading to poor performance of AI systems in rural contexts.

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The International Cooperation Breakdown

The policy document explicitly positions the US against international cooperation efforts by

• United Nation
• OECD, and
• G20

to ensure AI development serves all of humanity.

Implications for Australia and Other Nations

For Individual Australians

Immediate concerns:

• AI tools you use daily may become more biased against non-American perspectives
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• Reduced protection against algorithmic discrimination in services and employment
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• Potential exclusion from AI-enhanced opportunities if systems aren't designed with Australian contexts in mind
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Longer-term impacts:

• Dependence on AI systems that reflect foreign values and priorities
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• Reduced influence over AI governance that affects Australian society
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• Risk of digital colonialism where Australian data enhances foreign AI systems without local benefit
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For Australian Businesses and Government

Strategic challenges:

• Pressure to adopt AI systems that may not align with Australian fair trading and anti-discrimination laws
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• Risk of technological dependence on foreign AI infrastructure
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• Difficulty maintaining sovereign control over AI governance affecting Australian citizens
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Compliance concerns:

• Potential conflicts between US-developed AI systems and Australian consumer protection laws
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• Challenges in ensuring AI systems meet Australian workplace equity and safety standards
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What You Can Do

As an Individual

Diversify your AI usage:
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• Consider Swapping ChatGPT etc to European AI Mistral, which operates under EU AI legislation with mandatory fairness protections
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  ​>> Remember the commercial companies respond only to commercial pressures​
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• Be aware that your choice of AI tools influences market direction
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Stay informed:
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• Learn basic AI literacy (how to use & potential risks) to recognise when AI systems may be making decisions that affect you
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  ​>> The FASTEST way to safety is for ALL to be AI literate ​
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• Understand your rights regarding automated decision-making in your country
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Advocate for protection:

• Contact your representatives about the need for strong AI governance frameworks
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• Support organisations working on AI ethics and digital rights

For Australian Organisations

Assess your AI supply chain:

• Review whether your AI tools align with Australian values around fairness and inclusion
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• Consider the legal liability of deploying biased AI systems in Australian contexts
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• Implement local bias testing for any AI system affecting Australian consumers or employees
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Plan for technological sovereignty:

• Reduce dependency on single-source AI providers
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• Invest in local AI capabilities that reflect Australian contexts and values

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Prompt to research non-US alternatives to AI tools you use

Instructions
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1. Go to perplexity.ai​

2. Copy & paste below text and replace the text
​[INSERT YOUR AI TOOL NAME] with the name of your current tool you'd like to find alternative for.

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Become AI Literate

Increase Productivity & Protect Yourself from AI Harms

The Path Forward

This isn't about choosing sides in a geopolitical competition. It's about ensuring that as AI becomes the invisible infrastructure of modern life, it serves all of humanity rather than reflecting the biases and values of whoever builds the most powerful systems first.
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The next few years will determine whether AI becomes a force for global inclusion and human flourishing, or a tool that systematically perpetuates and amplifies existing inequalities on a planetary scale.
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The choices we make today—about which AI systems to use, which policies to support, and which companies to empower—will shape the digital world our children inherit.
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The bottom line: AI is becoming too important to be governed by any single country's values, no matter how well-intentioned. Global challenges require global solutions, and the stakes have never been higher.

This analysis is based on the publicly available "America's AI Action Plan" released by the White House in July 2025, along with current research on AI bias, language distribution online, and digital inclusion.