Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order outlining his government’s first regulations on artificial intelligence systems. It includes requirements that the most advanced AI products be tested to ensure that they cannot be used to produce biological or nuclear weapons. It also orders companies to report to the government if there’s a risk that their systems could help countries or terrorists make weapons of mass destruction. In London, a couple of days later, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak championed a series of landmark AI agreements. Leaders from 28 nations—including China—signed the Bletchley Declaration, a joint statement acknowledging the technology's risks.
This appears to be a rare case of politicians listening to the experts. Back in the spring, when AI programs were being unleashed in every sector of society, two big Canadian AI innovators, often called “the Godfathers of AI”—Geoffrey Hinton in Toronto and Yoshua Bengio in Montreal—expressed deep concern about the destructive power of what they had helped create. Their anguished cries got the attention of decision makers.
In the current special issue of Maclean’s, which describes how AI will change every aspect of life in Canada, Bengio explains the dangers that AI poses and the urgency for regulation. “I have grown very concerned that this technology, like the atomic bomb,” he says, “will grant humanity powers that could destabilize the world.”
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
