With respect to the question regarding the testimony offered by the IP Institute of Canada, my general response would be that if the Copyright Act was clear on interoperability as it stands, then we wouldn't see so many obvious obstacles to interoperability here in Canada.
If that position is correct, then I think what we would need to do is make it really clear to follow-on innovators and others that they are free to do that kind of innovation and add-on work. What I think is that the act as currently stated is actually not sufficient to enable the kind of operability that we're discussing here today.
With regard to the question of AI, that is a really difficult question for a number of reasons, one of which is that AI is most typically a black box. We don't actually know what's happening with many of these systems. We don't know where the data is coming from, where it's being used, how it's being used or what the models are that are being applied.
What I would say is that one of the key ways in which an interoperability provision like the one proposed would help us with respect to AI would be to enable more critical research into how AI is being developed, adapted and applied so that we can make sure that as these technologies continue to be deployed in the world, they're safe and not promoting bias and other harmful social consequences.