‘You can’t put the cat back in the bag once it's out’: Australians’ understandings, practices and imaginaries concerning generative AI

Abstract

Since their introduction in late 2022, generative AI applications have proliferated as Big Tech companies seek to encourage widespread adoption from the public. This article reports on the findings from exploratory qualitative research conducted in mid-2025 with Australian adults about their knowledge, everyday practices and imaginaries related to generative AI. Nearly all participants, regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity or geographical location, had experimented with generative AI applications, and many had incorporated them into their quotidian routines. However, far from being enchanted by these technologies, these Australians saw them as little more than mundane software that was now pervasive and therefore unavoidable. Generative AI was described as offering useful tools or helpers for achieving better efficiency, time-saving, and productivity in accomplishing routine tasks at home and work. Most participants were aware that the tools frequently generated incorrect information, and therefore required checking, but seemed largely untroubled about this. They expressed concerns about the impacts of possibilities of fake information, scams and data privacy issues, and the loss of learning or critical thinking that generative AI use could cause. However, participants also expressed feelings of powerlessness over what they could do to avoid using generative AI in the face of the determination by Big Tech – and in some cases, employers and educational institutions – to promote its use. More profound negative impacts were mostly recounted as abstract or as potential problems in a future world if generative AI development by Big Tech was allowed to progress unchecked.

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