Australian MP urges public input on AI's role in youth radicalisation

An inquiry open to public submissions

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is now accepting public submissions on the nature and drivers of radicalisation in Australia, including the role played by technology. Ciccone, who chairs the committee, says he pushed for the inquiry into how young Australians are being radicalised online. Gaming platforms, encrypted chats and algorithms were among its starting points.

He says the committee wants to hear from the community and not only from experts, because the issue affects families in every part of Australia. Submissions can be made through the committee's website. According to Ciccone, the inquiry will report by 22 March 2027, but its findings can only be as good as the evidence put before it.

His article follows Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's address to the United Nations General Assembly, where Albanese argued that the world needs to cooperate and get ahead of the risks of AI. Albanese pointed to Australia's world-first social media age restrictions as an example of governments acting rather than waiting for others to move first.

What the evidence shows so far

Ciccone says extremist groups have used the internet for years to spread propaganda and find recruits, and that AI has the potential to supercharge the process. He stresses the need to separate what is known from what is still being investigated.

The clearest example, he writes, is propaganda. Groups including ISIS and Al-Qaeda have used generative AI tools to produce recruitment material and disinformation, and AI can make such content faster and easier to tailor to different audiences.

He also cites evidence that AI can give vulnerable people practical means to act on extremist beliefs:

• Tech Against Terrorism, a UN-backed watchdog, tested 27 AI models with more than 2,000 requests based on real terrorist use cases, including instructions relating to explosives and attack planning. ChatGPT, the most widely used system, refused only 48 per cent of those requests.
• Researchers at Cambridge University separately found that Boko Haram operatives used chatbots, including Claude, Gemini, Meta AI and DeepSeek, to help plan attacks and refine bomb-making techniques.
• Last year, an update to the instructions of X's chatbot Grok led it to generate content praising Hitler and using antisemitic tropes, which Ciccone says shows how quickly AI systems can produce harmful material without deliberate misuse.

The open question: can a chatbot radicalise directly?

The harder question, Ciccone writes, is whether a chatbot can radicalise someone directly, as a human recruiter might, through persistent conversation. Researchers call this a real and rising risk, according to the senator.

He quotes the director-general of the Australian Intelligence Security Organisation, Mike Burgess, who said in a Lowy Institute address last November: "the internet incubates, social media accelerates … artificial intelligence exacerbates."

Ciccone contrasts the internet of a decade ago with today's. A young person once had to find the right forum, social media account or person willing to talk them into an ideology. Now, he says, they may find a chatbot that never gets tired, never pushes back and can generate content tailored to what they are feeling in that moment.

Gaming platforms, algorithms and encrypted messaging remain central to how young Australians are exposed to extremist thinking, he writes, and AI cuts across all of them. It can write propaganda, generate images and videos, produce material shared through gaming-adjacent chats, and hold conversations with vulnerable young people at a scale no human recruiter could match.

What it means for platforms and families

Ciccone's central message is that Australia should not wait for a young person to be radicalised through an AI system before asking what safeguards are in place. He invites anyone who works with young people, researches the area, builds platforms, or is a parent to contribute evidence to the inquiry.

For technology companies, the article signals that AI chatbots and their safety measures are likely to come under scrutiny in the inquiry, which explicitly covers the role of technology. The refusal rate cited from the Tech Against Terrorism testing is the kind of evidence that could shape that discussion. The article is an opinion piece, and The Strategist notes that opinions are the authors' and not ASPI's.