Nothing, Eh.

I mentioned recently some US state initiatives on artificial intelligence. A further round up of those is here. Lots of potential regulatory first steps underway. Or at least discussions about it. So if the states are underway, what are Canadian provinces doing? Pick your favourite Canadian province and run a search to see if they are doing something similar to what is described at the state level. Do the same with a couple of other provinces and see what you find. I’ll wait…

Yeah, that picture is a pretty good summary of what you found, isn’t it. There are a few provincial web pages about trying to attract AI investment to provinces. Not much else. It’s kind of a problem, especially since as I have mentioned, a good chunk of the regulatory aspect in Canada probably lies in the provincial sphere of jurisdiction. In addition, the later you start, the likelier you will just end up adopting the rules that get sorted out in someone else’s territory in order to keep things smooth. Especially if that someone else is an 800 pound economic gorilla camped on your Southern border. So you are effectively opting out of contributing to the discourse on AI regulation. It’s also a problem on the investment side, because if you aren’t setting up a jurisdiction that provides clarity of regulation, you’re risking potential investors choosing an alternate jurisdiction that does so that they can benefit from those.

There is a clear pattern emerging of Canada being well behind other major economies as far as goverments engaging with artificial intelligence goes. This lag is now visible both at the federal and the provincial level. Maybe time to add to the to do list.

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Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com