Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for their attendance.
I'm going to start with you, Mr. White.
I'm reading from an article entitled “AI-powered disinformation is spreading—is Canada ready for the political impact?” It starts by talking about a story regarding Slovakia's national election last fall:
Just days before [the] election last fall, a mysterious voice recording began spreading a lie online.
The manipulated file made it sound like Michal Simecka, leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, was discussing buying votes with a local journalist. But the conversation never happened; the file was later debunked as a “deepfake” hoax.
On election day, Simecka lost to the pro-Kremlin populist candidate Robert Fico in a tight race.
While it's nearly impossible to determine whether the deepfake file contributed to the final results, the incident points to growing fears about the effect products of artificial intelligence are having on democracy around the world—and in Canada.
According to Caroline Xavier, head of the Communications Security Establishment, “This is what we fear...that there could be a foreign interference so grave that then the electoral roll results are brought into question.” She continued, “We know that misinformation and disinformation is already a threat to democratic processes. [AI] will potentially add to that amplification. That is quite concerning.”
What is Canada currently doing, in your opinion, to address this threat, or what should it be doing?