Opinion: “AI Doesn't Know What a Lounge Room in Shepparton Smells Like”...and Now It Won't Get to Learn

The Co-existence of Art & AI, by Ning Choi

"I don't think at the moment, AI understands what a lounge room in Shepparton, Victoria smells like."

When Indigenous rapper Adam Briggs said this to a Senate committee in September, he captured something essential about creativity: it's rooted in peoples’ lived experiences. 

While to many the authenticity of art was something worth protecting, the big wigs of Big Tech, instead, wanted to use Aussie art as the basis of AI model training. 

In big news for our artists, the Australian government put their foot down and refused to let them do so. 

Breaking It Down

On 27 October 2025, Attorney-General Michelle Rowland confirmed that Australia will not introduce a text and data mining exception to copyright law.

This means that AI companies cannot legally use Australian creative works through various mediums, including music, writing, art and voices, to train their models without permission and payment.

It comes after, in August, news of an “AI exemption” was presented to the Productivity Commission claiming an additional $116 billion for the Australian economy. Of course, Big Tech firms backed the idea, but it was the artists who fought back harder. 

In the senate enquiry, Briggs asked a simple question: "Why is it a radical notion that artists should be compensated for their work?"

The government listened. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland was unequivocal, saying "We are making it very clear that we will not be entertaining a text and data mining exception"

The Real Fight Has Just Begun

This isn't about being anti-technology. It's about fairness.

While this stance is certainly a win for our artists, the question quickly shifts to the one alluded to in Briggs’ words… what happens to the art that has already been used to train AI up to this point, and more importantly, how are the artists meant to get what they deserve in the form of compensation? 

Looking deeper into the standoff, I believe that, by trying to seek a restructure of the current copyright laws, Big Tech was seeking wasn't just permission for future use, but retroactive legalisation of theft that's already happened.

Think about what that means. 

Voice actors having their work cloned without permission, then being replaced by those clones. Writers finding their prose regurgitated by ChatGPT without attribution. Musicians finding their production and lyrics used in a jumbled mess of a “song.” 

But is this reprieve too far gone?

As it stands, Pandora’s Box has already been opened, and it might already be too little, too late. So the question now is, has the damage already been done? 

Creative organisations are demanding compensation for work already stolen and removal of that work from existing AI models.

Whether tech companies will comply, compensate creators for past training , and play by the rules going forward remains an open question. 

For now, however, the principle is clear - Australian creativity has value, and that value demands respect. 

Now, taking it one step further, this principle has been enshrined in legislation with the government rejecting the proposed amendment to the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).

Is Australia Leading The Way?

On that September day when Briggs took the senate floor and asked “Where is the benefit to Australian artists in having their work scraped by AI?” the point he was making was that the work that our artists produce was authentic, irreplicable and most importantly, comes from their own humanity.  

And whilst AI can already do so much, it simply can’t understand what it’s like to be human.

That authenticity and irreplaceable human quality is what Australia has chosen to protect.

Alas, the fight for fair compensation in the age of AI is far from over. But for Australian artists, at least the battle to protect their art has been won. 

We can hope is that the rest of the world is paying attention and follows suit sooner rather than later in navigating the co-existence of art and artificial intelligence. 

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About Ning Choi

Ning is a JumpStart 2025 graduate and sports writer for Extra Time Magazine. Based in Perth, they pair Gen Z instincts with curiosity, championing authenticity and always asking why things work.