Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Rachel Curran and I'm the head of public policy for Meta in Canada. It's a pleasure to address the committee this afternoon.
Meta supports risk-based, technology-neutral approaches to the regulation of artificial intelligence. We believe it's important for governments to work together to set common standards and governance models for AI. It's this approach that will enable the economic and social opportunities of an open science approach to AI and also bolster Canadian competitiveness.
Meta has been at the forefront of the development of artificial intelligence for more than a decade. We can talk about that later during this hearing. This innovation has allowed us to connect billions of people and generate real value for small businesses. For our community, AI is what helps people discover and engage with the content they care about. For the millions of businesses, particularly small businesses, that use our platforms, our AI-powered tools make an advertiser's job easier. That's a real game-changer for small and medium-sized businesses that are looking to reach customers who are interested in their products.
In addition, Meta's fundamental AI research team has taken an open approach to AI research, pioneering breakthroughs across a range of industries and sectors. In 2017 we launched our AI research lab in Montreal to contribute to the Canadian AI ecosystem. Today, Meta's global research efforts are led by Dr. Joelle Pineau, a world-leading Canadian researcher and a professor at McGill University. She is the one who heads up Meta's global AI research efforts.
Our Canadian team of researchers has worked on some of the biggest breakthroughs in AI, from developing more diverse and inclusive AI models to improving health care accessibility and patient care, which have benefited communities in Canada and abroad. This work is shared openly with the greater research community, a commitment to open science and a level of transparency that helps Meta set the highest standards of quality and responsibility and ultimately build better AI solutions.
We applaud Canada's leadership on the development of smart regulation and guardrails for AI development, particularly through its leadership on the Global Partnership on AI and the G7 process. We strongly support the work of this committee, of course, and the initial aim of Bill C-27, which is to ensure that AI is developed and deployed responsibly while also ensuring that global regulatory frameworks are aligned, maintaining Canada's status as a world leader in AI innovation and research.
We think AI is advancing so quickly that measures focused on specific technologies could soon become irrelevant and hinder innovation. As we look to the future, we hope that the government will consider a truly risk-based and outcome-focused approach that will be future-proof. In that regard, we would flag a few specific concerns with Bill C-27.
First, one proposed amendment from the minister to this bill would classify content moderation or prioritization systems as “high-impact”. We respectfully disagree that these systems are inherently high risk as defined in the legislation, and suggest that the regulation of risks associated with content that Canadians see online would be better dealt with in pending online harms legislation.
Similarly, we think the proposed regime for general purpose AI is not appropriately tailored to risk and more closely resembles the requirements for truly high-impact systems. We suggest that the obligations for general purpose AI should be harmonized with international frameworks, such as the ongoing G7 Hiroshima process, which I referenced earlier, the White House voluntary commitments and OECD work on AI governance.
Lastly, we'd flag the audit and access powers contemplated by Bill C-27. We think they are at odds with existing frameworks—for example, with the approach by other signatories of the Bletchley Declaration arising out of the recent U.K. AI safety summit. That includes the U.S. and the U.K. Again, we'd encourage Canada to pursue an approach that preserves privacy and is consistent with global standards.
Members, we believe that Meta is uniquely poised to solve some of AI's biggest problems by weaving our learnings from our world-leading research into products that billions of people and businesses can benefit from while continuing to contribute to Canada's vibrant, world-leading AI ecosystem.
We look forward to working with this committee and to answering your questions.
Thank you.