This partnership leverages the intellectual expertise of both CIFAR and BII+E in the design and delivery of this lab series in a number of ways. CIFAR has a long history of supporting Canadian AI R&D and currently engage in research related to the social, ethical and legal aspects of artificial intelligence through its AI & Society program. CIFAR also has an extensive network of fellows that provide expert insight into the rapidly expanding field of AI.

Similarly, BII+E’s AI + Society work stream seeks to understand the impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI), demystify core AI capabilities and identify new ways of using advances in AI to improve government and promote public interest. To achieve these aims, BII+E brings its experience in public engagements and in-house research capacity to develop relevant content, facilitate the participation of stakeholders, and then disseminate knowledge generated throughout the labs.

CIFAR and BII+E have collaboratively designed each lab to:

• Provide emerging policy innovators with a direct line of sight into the AI sector, including the existing myths and hype, current capabilities, as well as present-day and potential applications. A mixture of presentations and discussions with prominent AI researchers and practitioners provide participants with the opportunity to learn common terminology, as well as current techniques and applications.
• Increase the capacity of future leaders to understand the cross-cutting policy implications of AI. Facilitated discussions on curated scenarios encourage participants to ask critical questions surrounding the benefits and risks of current and potential AI capabilities and applications.
• Facilitate early thinking on potential government responses to emerging AI applications. Lab activities have been designed to raise awareness of the types of interventions policy makers can utilize to mitigate the risks and encourage beneficial development and use of AI technologies.

The AI Futures Policy Labs series bring together individuals with a range of expertise in public policy, AI R&D, community engagement, and Indigenous studies.

Guest speakers:

• Alexandre Drouin, Research Scientist at Element AI
• Valentine Goddard, Founder and CEO of Artificial Intelligence Impact Alliance (AIIA)
• Michael Karlin, Senior Advisor,  Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
• Katya Kudashkina, Researcher, Vector Institute
• Cam Linke, Executive Director, Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (AMII)
• Dr. Joel Martin, Director of Research & Development, National Research Council of Canada
• Maya Medeiros, Partner, Norton Rose Fullbright
• Mark Schmidt, CIFAR Senior Fellow, Canada Research Chair in Large-Scale Machine Computing and Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, UBC
• Dr. Kim TallBear, Canadian Research Chair, Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience and Society

Host organizations: 

• ATB Financial
• Microsoft
• Element AI