Annual report 2020–21

Introduction

First launched in May 2019, the Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence (AI) was created with a mandate to advise the federal government on how Canada can build on its strengths and global leadership in AI, create inclusive economic growth, and ensure that developments in AI reflect the values of Canadians.

Over the past two years, the advice of the AI Advisory Council has played a critical role in informing the renewal and expansion of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy as announced in Budget 2021. The Council has also undertaken significant efforts to advance the conversation with the Canadian public on the ethical implications of AI technologies, thereby providing a roadmap for further consultation. Furthermore, the Council continues to play a critical role in advancing international collaboration on AI technologies through forums such as the Global Partnership on AI.

AI will continue to impact and transform the Canadian economy, particularly as Canada emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Among global competition, Canada's AI Advisory Council will continue to play an important role in identifying opportunities to increase Canadian competitiveness, advance Canada's AI interests internationally, and provide expert recommendations on the impacts and opportunities of AI in key economic sectors.

Renewal and expansion of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy

In Budget 2021, the Government of Canada committed to renewing and expanding the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy (PCAIS), which was first launched in 2017 with a $125M investment deployed by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Several of the key investments proposed in Budget 2021 to renew and expand PCAIS strongly link to the detailed findings and recommendations from the Commercialization Working Group convened by the AI Advisory Council. Budget 2021 proposes to provide nearly $440M over ten years, starting in 2021-22, in support of the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy, including:

• $185 million over five years, starting in 2021-22, to support the commercialization of artificial intelligence innovations and research in Canada;
• $162.2 million over ten years, starting in 2021-22, to help retain and attract top academic talent across Canada—including in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec. This programming will be delivered by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research;
• $48 million over five years, starting in 2021-22, for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research to renew and enhance its research, training, and knowledge mobilization programs;
• $40 million over five years, starting in 2022-23, to provide dedicated computing capacity for researchers at the national artificial intelligence institutes in Edmonton, Toronto, and Montréal;
• $8.6 million over five years, starting in 2021-22, to advance the development and adoption of standards related to artificial intelligence;

These investments will enable Canada to maintain its leadership in AI by continuing to attract and retain world-leading talent, grow its domestic commercial capabilities in AI, expand its computing capabilities to benefit AI researchers, and advance the development and adoption of AI standards. The advice and leadership of the AI Advisory Council and its Commercialization Working Group has been critical in realizing this next phase of AI investment in Canada.

Public awareness

Noting the importance of engaging the Canadian public on the responsible development and ethical use of AI, a Public Awareness Working Group was launched by the Advisory Council in 2020. The mandate of the Working Group is to boost public awareness of the ethical implications of AI development, governance, and use through a three-track plan of work:

• Launching a national survey to capture and assess the understanding and interest of Canadians in AI and AI systems;
• Lead online deliberations using a similar model to the methodology established by the Montréal Declaration for the Responsible Development of AI: and,
• Produce a co-developed final report which integrates and summaries the information gathered via both the national survey and online deliberations.

In pursuit of its mandate, the Public Awareness Working Group initially developed a draft proposal for an online survey. The survey questions followed three themes: assessing AI literacy amongst the Canadian public; identifying areas of AI 'hope' or optimism; and identifying areas of AI 'fear' or concern. Following the development of the initial draft, Nanos Research was retained by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada to assist in co-developing and carrying out the final version of the survey. In November 2020, Nanos undertook an online survey in English and French of over 1,200 adult Canadians drawn from a non-probability panel.

The results of the national survey are summarized by subject areas with the following key findings:

Familiarity with AI and its capabilities

• Regarding self-reported AI literacy, approximately three quarters of surveyed Canadians self-identify as familiar or somewhat familiar with AI. Rates of highest self-familiarity were reported amongst men, younger individuals (aged 18-34), and residents of Ontario;
• On average, Canadians correctly distinguished whether or not a technology uses AI 4.2 out of every 6 times (70%);
• Canadians most frequently rate the problem-solving capabilities of AI as good or very good, while rating its ability to make ethical decisions in a particular context as poor or very poor.

Future impact of AI and views on AI development

• Canadians are nearly seven times more likely to say that the impact of AI on Canada as a whole will be very positive rather than very negative. Canadians are four times more likely to say that the impact on themselves will be very positive rather than very negative;
• Residents in Saskatchewan and Manitoba give lower positivity ratings on the impact of AI, including the anticipated impact within their personal lives as well as within Canada;
• Nearly nine in ten Canadians think human involvement is important for AI-enabled systems, and that a computer's decision-making ability is limited by how they are programmed.
• More than two in three Canadians think that AI has the potential to cause harm to society.

Perception of the impact of AI on life in Canada

• In the next five years, Canadians most frequently say AI will have a positive impact on the manufacturing, transportation and banking sectors. They least frequently say that AI will have a positive impact on arts and culture and law enforcement sectors.
• Over the same assessed time period, Canadians most frequently express concern about the impact of AI on law enforcement and the labour force sectors, while most frequently saying they are not concerned about the impact of AI on arts and culture, agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
• Across all sectors assessed in the survey, Canadians did not identify a single field in which the perceived future impact of AI would be overall negative.

Perception of the impact of AI on life in Canada

• In the next five years, Canadians most frequently say AI will have a positive impact on the manufacturing, transportation and banking sectors. They least frequently say that AI will have a positive impact on arts and culture and law enforcement sectors.
• Over the same assessed time period, Canadians most frequently express concern about the impact of AI on law enforcement and the labour force sectors, while most frequently saying they are not concerned about the impact of AI on arts and culture, agriculture and manufacturing sectors.
• Across all sectors assessed in the survey, Canadians did not identify a single field in which the perceived future impact of AI would be overall negative.

Informed by the results from the national survey, the Public Awareness Working Group, in partnership with CIFAR and Algora Lab (University of Montréal), launched a series of workshops titled Open Dialogue: Artificial Intelligence in Canada. The Open Dialogue sessions invited Canadians to share their views on the perceptions, opportunities, and challenges of AI development through a series of pan-Canadian virtual workshops held through March to May of 2021. Over the course of the virtual workshops, the Working Group engaged with over 430 Canadians across the country in virtual sessions where participants were invited to consider and discuss the ethical dilemmas posed by particular AI applications through exploring specific AI use case scenarios. As a part of this engagement, the Group also hosted dedicated youth workshops which engaged over 140 secondary school students shared their views and offered advice on proceeding with ethical AI development.

The final report of the Public Awareness Working Group, which includes the individual results from the national survey as well as the Open Dialogue workshops, will be made publicly available in summer 2021.

The Global Partnership on AI

Upon concluding the inaugural Summit of the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) with international counterparts and over 200 leading AI experts in December 2020, Canada assumed the chairmanship of GPAI in 2020-21. In this role, Canada will leverage the principles of the Digital Charter to promote a vision for a global AI ecosystem that enables responsible and trustworthy innovation, while fostering diversity and inclusion across the AI domain.

Throughout the past year, Council members played an important role in advising and advancing Canada's leadership in GPAI. Members of Council were invited to share their views on participation in GPAI events, including the Montréal Summit in December 2020.

AI Council co-chair Yoshua Bengio also serves as the co-chair of the GPAI Responsible AI Working Group. Dr. Bengio has kept the Council apprised of the activities of the Working Group and its sub-group on AI and Pandemic Response, including: efforts to catalogue responsible AI initiatives; projects to understand the effects of social media recommender systems in the polarization of opinions, to foster open AI research towards the development of new drugs to minimize or avoid possible future public health challenges and pandemics, and to leverage AI in the fight against climate change; and longer-term initiatives on AI and education as well as transparency and governance.

In addition to this, several ambitious projects were proposed by other GPAI Working Groups to tackle key global challenges, including real-world data trusts to enable data sharing for socially beneficial purposes as well as guidelines and operationalizable processes to guarantee that AI is used to foster decent and fair work. In preparation for the next GPAI Summit taking place at the end of 2021 in Paris, the Council will continue to be instrumental in informing the direction of these applied AI projects. As such, Canada will turn to the Council to help ensure that GPAI benefits from Canadian expertise and Canada's early leadership results, through practical and impactful actions, in the advancement of the responsible development and use of AI.

COVID-19 and AI

As Canada emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the AI Advisory Council continues to provide expert advice on the opportunities, challenges, risks and threats of COVID-19 to Canada's AI sector.

Representatives from several of the pan-Canadian national AI institutes addressed the Council regarding their individual and collective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a response to the pandemic, Canada's AI institutes have been deepening and broadening their collaboration activities both domestically and internationally, including leveraging multidisciplinary CIFAR AI Catalyst Grants. AI institutes also pivoted their research and applications to address the impacts of the pandemic, tackling important issues such as tracking mental health, detecting and monitoring pneumonia in patients, and contributing expertise to the development of provincial data health platforms.

Several Council members also relayed their individual experiences during the pandemic as business leaders of innovative AI-focused Canadian companies. Broadly, Canada's AI sector has been well-served by the suite of governments programs designed both to provide temporary relief and spur economic activity. Council members advised that policymakers should keep several key considerations in mind as Canada emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic:

• The importance of "made-in-Canada" branding to Canada's AI sector, which is likely to communicate inherent AI values and ethics to international customers;
• Retaining and leveraging AI talent from across the country, particularly given the realities of distributed workforces;
• Challenges around AI adoption that are fueled by access to quality data and a lack of technical knowledge across client organizations;
• The impact of improved speed, access, and transparency to government programs that has selectively accompanied the pandemic.

The AI Advisory Council will continue to provide targeted insight and recommendations to the federal government as the economy re-opens, and particularly as the Government takes action in its renewal and expansion of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy.

AI and healthcare

In September 2020, Council Member and CIFAR Executive Director Elissa Strome provided a presentation on the key recommendations and final report of the AI4Health (AI4H) Task Force. First convened in spring 2019, the task force was convened by CIFAR to discuss opportunities for Canada to advance AI for health. Broadly, Canada has numerous advantages that could enable better AI integration within the health care system, such as an entrepreneurial ecosystem and a diverse population; however, Canada lacks coordination in effectively working across sectors and jurisdictions. The report provides three key recommendations:

• Establish AI4H infrastructure (including computational infrastructure, data sets, policy frameworks, and public engagement models) that would enable responsible access to health care data while ensuring data security and privacy protection;
• Accelerate the development of safe, high-performance AI4H applications by both public institutions and private enterprises, alongside the deployment of incentives that promote strategic procurement and responsible scaling of these applications within Canada's healthcare system; and
• Ensure that federal, provincial, and territorial plans to advance digital health are coupled with an explicit AI4H strategy with relevant policies, investments, partnerships, and regulatory frameworks.

In April 2021, Council co-chair Yoshua Bengio provided a presentation to the Council on Incentives for Efficient Innovation. Within this analysis, Dr. Bengio identified innovations that would significantly benefit society but may be unattractive to private sector interests due to high risk or a lack of perceived commercial value; Dr. Bengio cited examples such as AI for drug discovery (specifically new antibiotics), as well as materials discovery and monitoring/controlling tree planting operations to combat climate change. Dr. Bengio recommended that to incentivize innovation with significant societal impacts, governments should fund innovation using not just grants but also outcome-based rewards, as well as tie their innovation funding to broader requirements that will require proponents to share their results (open science) and share their data (open data).

In a following roundtable discussion, Council members cited several important initiatives with implications for the healthcare space. This included the Roadmap for Open Science, an initiative spearheaded by Council Member Dr. Mona Nemer, which provides overarching principles and recommendations for open science activities within Canada. Council members also noted best practices within the health care space, specifically noting the pioneering health open science initiatives underway at the Montréal Neurological Institute-Hospital that incents open data in healthcare.

The integration of AI technologies within healthcare will continue to be a critical issue meriting further discussion and exploration by the Council.

Other consultations

In November 2020, the Advisory Council met with Chantal Guay, Chief Executive Officer of the Standards Council of Canada. Ms. Guay provided a presentation to Council that focused on the development of Canada's domestic AI standards, with a discussion following on utilizing standards to ensure Canadian economic and social interests remain top-of-mind in the development of future innovative technologies.

Ms. Guay noted that due to the global growth, impact, and complexity of AI technologies, governments and regulators worldwide are attempting to define AI related guidelines, regulatory frameworks, and national AI strategies with intentions to regulate AI. AI technology has reached a readiness-level at which standardization is crucial for ensuring the development of responsible technology, innovation, commercialization, and market implementation. The leading countries in AI have invested heavily in international standards, including the United States, Germany, France, and China. Canada is developing a strong voice in the main international standards development platform for AI and Big Data (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42).

Council members were invited to participate in the Data Governance Standardization Collaborative and were advised about the AI pilot conformity assessment and accreditation program.

The year ahead

As Canada emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council will continue to prioritize advising the Government of Canada on challenges and opportunities for both growing Canada's domestic AI capabilities, as well as reinforcing Canada's international AI leadership.

Implementation of the renewed Pan-Canadian AI Strategy

The Advisory Council will continue to advise the Government of Canada as the second phase of the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy is realized, as announced in Budget 2021. The advice of the Council will be critical as Canada prioritizes reinvestment within its AI centres of expertise, creates additional programs to support the commercialization of novel Canadian AI technologies, implements increased computing capacity for AI researchers, and continues to advance the development and adoption of AI standards.

Future skills and talent development

Canada's pipeline of AI talent continues to be a critical focus for the AI Advisory Council. In the coming year, the Council plans to engage on skills and talent initiatives that can assist Canada in growing its domestic talent base, ensuring greater AI awareness as a precursor to AI adoption, and managing AI-related workplace transitions in a thoughtful, inclusive and diverse manner.

Data sharing, open data, and open science

Building off of conversations over the past year, the Advisory Council will continue to discuss measures and instruments that could increase and incent open data, open science, and data sharing within academic and commercial realms, particularly focusing on instances where data sharing/access would result in benefits for the public good.

Public engagement

The Advisory Council will be publishing its final report of the Public Awareness working group over the summer of 2021. The final report will summarize the key insights from the national survey and the pan-Canadian Open Dialogue workshops, with an aim to provide a roadmap and best practices to the Government of Canada regarding fulsome and meaningful engagement strategies with the Canadian public on the responsible and ethical development of AI.

GPAI leadership

Through both direct engagements and within an advisory role, the AI Advisory Council will continue to play a key role in shaping Canada's leadership as the Chair of GPAI. The expertise and advice of the AI Advisory Council will continue to be sought by the Government of Canada as the GPAI Working Groups launch and implement their first applied AI projects.

Council renewal

As Council members were initially appointed for two-year terms with the possibility of renewal, the membership of the AI Advisory Council will be examined and reviewed by the Government of Canada. The Government of Canada thanks all Members of Council for their years of service and dedication.