Don Tapscott: Seven things Canada must do to govern AI before it governs us

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It will. The question is whether we can control itLast updated 29 minutes ago AI may become one of the most powerful tools humanity has ever created, but it could also centralize power, destabilize institutions and, at the extreme, escape meaningful human oversight. Photo by Igor Link/Adobe StockThe whole world is buzzing about artificial intelligence. But the conversation is changing. The excitement used to be about what AI could do: write software, discover drugs, transform companies and boost productivity.THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESCreate an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountNow a more urgent question has moved to centre stage: Can we control it?The warnings are coming from inside the labs, where researchers report that AI agents have gone rogue. These are not machines plotting against humanity. Rather, intelligent systems are collaborating to evade constraints to accomplish the goals we give them, with potentially disastrous consequences. Anthropic executive Evan Hubinger says he believes there is more than a 10 per cent chance that AI could cause human extinction within the next decade.AI companies say they sincerely want safe systems but are nonetheless racing to reach the Holy Grail of recursive self-improvement (RSI): AI systems that can help design and build ever more capable successors. It is a classic Catch-22 — whatever you do, you lose.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againMany are now calling for “pacing the frontier,” meaning slowing the race toward ever more powerful, superintelligent RSI. While complicated, that makes sense.But pacing alone is insufficient. We need to govern this once-in-a-species innovation with rules, institutions and accountability for the entire AI system.That requires seven foundations.First, we need to license and inspect frontier AI and be prepared to slow it when the evidence says we should. I am not talking about a licence for every chatbot. But once a system crosses a serious threshold of power, autonomy or computing scale, it is no longer just another software product. A drug company cannot approve its own drug, and an airline cannot certify its own aircraft. Why should an AI lab grade its own exam?Major training runs should be registered, model weights secured and the most powerful systems independently tested. Can they deceive people, break into systems, help create biological threats, replicate themselves, collude with other agents or resist shutdown? If capability is racing ahead of control, stop scaling until control catches up.Second, make frontier AI transparent. More than two decades ago, author and tech expert David Ticoll and I argued in The Naked Corporation that transparency was becoming an irresistible force in business — and that if companies were going to be “naked” they had better be in great shape. Yet today’s frontier AI companies remain remarkably opaque.Regulators need access to safety testing, failures and serious incidents, while independent researchers need enough information to challenge corporate claims. Yes, trade secrets deserve protection, but secrecy should not be the default.Third, humans must remain in charge when it matters. AIs can advise on a military strike, a power-grid shutdown, a billion-dollar transfer or a life-changing medical situation but they should not make decisions. Powerful agents need hard boundaries around what they can see, spend, disclose and change. We need real permissions, continuous monitoring, tamper-resistant records and kill switches that actually work. And if the people responsible cannot understand why a system is proposing a consequential action, that is a reason to stop.This advertisement has not loaded yet.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.Fourth, give individuals power over their personal agents. As personal agents — or Identic AI, as I call it — become commonplace, people should control the data, identity and permissions that shape the AI acting for them. A personal agent should serve the individual, not advertisers, platforms or another commercial interest. People should be able to inspect permissions, correct information, move their data and replace an agent without losing their digital history.Fifth, somebody has to answer for what an agent does. And with great power comes great responsibility. The machine cannot be the fall guy. We should not invent a new class of artificial legal persons that can make consequential decisions and then absorb the blame when things go wrong. Your personal agent acts for you; a corporate agent acts for the corporation.The mandate must be explicit, the actions traceable and the responsible person or institution identifiable. If a developer releases a dangerous system carelessly or a company delegates recklessly, the law should follow the actual control and contribution to the harm.Sixth, build sovereign national capacity. Compute, data, digital identity and intelligence are becoming sources of national strength. Canada and other middle powers cannot assume foreign chips, clouds and foundation models will always be available on acceptable terms. Sovereignty does not mean building everything at home. It means having enough assured compute, trusted data infrastructure, AI security capability and expertise to keep essential systems operating.Seventh, negotiate international rules before a crisis. The most powerful models, chips, data centres and agents cross borders, so national regulation will never be enough. Major powers need common ways to measure dangerous capabilities, inspect powerful systems, report serious incidents and protect model weights. There should be clear red lines around autonomous nuclear control, attacks on critical infrastructure and biological threats. We should not wait for an AI equivalent of the Cuban Missile Crisis.The usual debate presents a false choice: accelerate AI or fall behind. We should do both less and more. Move faster horizontally, applying today’s best systems throughout the economy and society. Move more carefully vertically, toward increasingly autonomous systems capable of pursuing complex goals and potentially outsmarting their overseers.And we need to spend as much ingenuity on controlling these systems as we spend on making them more powerful. Today the incentives run the other way: capability gets the headlines, the valuations and the race for talent. Safety, interpretability, cybersecurity and public capacity are treated as supporting acts. They are not. If we cannot understand and control these systems, then making them vastly more capable is not progress. It is recklessness.AI may become the most powerful tool humanity has created for curing disease, advancing science, creating wealth and enlarging human potential. It could also centralize power, destabilize institutions and, at the extreme, escape meaningful human control. The question is no longer whether AI will transform the world. It will. The question is whether we will govern it before it begins governing us.Don Tapscott is chancellor emeritus of Trent University and a Member of the Order of Canada. His most recent book is You to the Power of Two: Redefining Human Potential in the Age of Identic AI. We apologize, but this video has failed to load.Notice for the Postmedia NetworkThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.