With just over three weeks to go before the election, there has been minimal debate about AI as a significant issue for the next government to deal with. As AI technologies continue their exponential evolution, understanding citizens’ views is vital, in particular those who will be affected for the longest time – our young people – those who have been raised while AI technology has developed.
Our society is scrambling with the development of AI and its infiltration into daily life: Educational institutions wrestle with the impacts on teaching and learning; the creative arts sector pleads for safeguards against, and compensation for, their work being used to train generative AI models; citizens protest the water and energy requirements of large-scale data centres needed to power AI; and CEOs of major AI companies warn of the existential threat that their own creations pose and call on governments to develop new rules.
Meanwhile, the current coalition government’s strategy is to take a light touch to regulating AI.
Launched in July 2025 and developed with the assistance of AI, New Zealand’s official AI strategy, is titled “Investing with Confidence”. Our government’s strategy emphasises the reduction of barriers to business uptake of AI rather than safeguards for AI use. In contrast, the Australian government has established an AI safety institute, set up a joint select committee to scrutinise AI regulation, and has instantiated AI oversight through to the highest levels of government.
How do our rangatahi feel about AI’s impact on the world? In 2026, as part of our research survey called “What Is Your Stand?”, we asked more than 1500 Year 13 students from across New Zealand’s secondary schools whether they thought AI makes the world a better place and why.
Read more in The Press, The Post and Waikato Times.
Written by Dr Adam Stevens, Dr Deborah Stevens and Dr John Kleinsman at the Nathaniel Centre for Bioethics.
