I have just two comments on this.
One, it's partially why, if we had a proper public engagement and started from the beginning, you'd have to map the infrastructural assets that make up artificial intelligence. There is no AI without big tech, full stop. You can't spin it up in your garage. You can't go and do your little software company because code is available to you. That's not how this industry works. This is what I mean. I'm concerned about the lack of homework that has been done to make sure we're starting from a place of material, physical, infrastructural reality, and how it relates to this industry. That's one thing.
The second thing I want to say, which relates back to the conversation we were having about centralization or decentralization, is that not only does the Canadian government not have much clout in terms of telling what the heart of this infrastructure can and can't do.... When we think about privacy legislation, if we start up here with an umbrella called “privacy”, and then we look at how that works in different sectors, we might know what that looks like sector to sector. If our umbrella is called “artificial intelligence”, it's artificial intelligence what? What exactly are we trying to do if our umbrella is called “artificial intelligence”? Are we trying to use it everywhere?
I just want to keep returning us to the fact that we're having a conversation within a frame that does not track to the reality of how this industry is set up, nor how our pre-existing legislation is set up.
I just want to say how little companies might come in on this. The start-ups are hoping no one is going to ask about their two- or three-year revenues, because all start-ups have to do is show scale. That's how the venture capital industry works. You just have to show that your thing is getting big; you don't have to show that it's making money. That's how similar it is to a casino.
That's why I think the fact that we're building into this sector without looking at the consequences on the rest of our whole economy is also a grave error.