RightsCon Toronto 2018

In 2017, the Canadian government dedicated a significant portion of its budget to promote advancements in artificial intelligence (“AI”). Aimed towards creating an economic powerhouse in this industry, the national strategy has primarily concentrated on supporting research and commercialization on the subject. This approach, however, overlooks one of the most significant aspects surrounding the evolution of this domain: AI risks violating human rights and negatively affecting Canadian societal values. It is therefore crucial to develop appropriate legal and policy measures that, while not unduly hindering progress in this arena, creates an appropriate framework to ensure that developments in AI adequately reflect our country’s ideals and do not ignore the key legal and societal impacts of these technologies.

Against this background, the objective of this session is to identify both the legal and ethical implications surrounding the implementation of AI into society. In doing so, we hope to trigger the policy discussions necessary to spearhead the creation of a legal framework to govern developments in this industry going forward. This session will achieve this feat in two manners. Firstly, it will engage audience members from diverse backgrounds, namely legal, technological, and political. This will serve to foster a collaborative environment between all the key stakeholders involved to ensure that the framework suggested is not created in a legal vacuum, but is rather analyzed from all relevant angles such that it will be more likely to have real world impact. Secondly, it will create an open and interactive environment that will motivate audience participation and result in the creation of concrete solutions to the issues identified. As such, this session is designed as a cross between a traditional panel and a fishbowl session, and will be divided into three parts:

1. The first part of the session will span a maximum of thirty minutes. It will assemble academics specializing in technology law to discuss the legal and ethical considerations surrounding AI, automation, and algorithmic accountability in different scenarios and from diverse legal perspectives. The following six timely topics will be addressed: (1) ethical concerns surrounding the automation of vehicles, (2) ethical and privacy issues related to predictive justice and predictive policing, (3) the appropriation of military AI technologies for everyday use, (4) the effect of AI on the public’s access to news and public policy, with a focus on the technologies of bots and algorithm-driven advertising, (5) privacy issues with smart homes, and (6) copyright controversies surrounding machine learning and AI authored works. After briefly outlining the key legal and ethical issues that have so far been identified in respect to each subject, the panelists will turn to the audience for their input to further pinpoint concerns surrounding technological developments in these areas.

2. The audience will then be separated into six groups, each moderated by one of the panelists, and will further elaborate upon the issues identified in the previous segment through a discussion lasting for a half hour period. The aim of this exercise is twofold. The first is to foster a collaborative environment where each group can openly exchange their views of the future trials and tribulations that the AI industry may face. The second is to respond to the challenges identified by adopting novel approaches that will lead to innovative solutions geared towards promoting progress in this area as well as simultaneously protecting human rights and important societal values.

3. In the final fifteen minutes of this session, each panelist will briefly present the discussion of their respective groups and, once again, request the audience’s input for any final considerations.