Foundation models and generative AI occupy centre stage in the public discourse around artificial intelligence today. Touted to usher in a new era of computing, they enable instant automation, access to information, pattern identification and image, audio and video generation. They serve as building blocks for developing sophisticated single-purpose models that have the potential to bring exponential benefits across a variety of use cases, from content creation and commerce to cancer research and climate change.

However, their unchecked proliferation may also bring about potential risks, harms and hazards – such as the seamless generation of mis/disinformation, creation of dangerous content, copyright infringement, hallucinatory outputs, biased results and the harvesting of large quantities of personal data without informed consent. Harms could pervade beyond the digital environment, with increasing concerns over the implications of such models replacing human labour, and large carbon footprints associated with the development and deployment of such models.