In a digital and increasingly data-rich world, legislation is struggling to keep up with the ways in which data is generated, circulated, and used. Recently, the Ontario government sought formal responses from organizations housing legal or technical experts on issues surrounding data and privacy. Read what the Schwartz Reisman Institute’s experts had to say.

SRI Director Gillian K. Hadfield will discuss her book Rules for a Flat World as part of Rotman’s Big Ideas series. The paperback edition includes a new prologue about artificial intelligence—its risks, benefits, evolution, and regulation. In this interview, Hadfield offers insights into how we might understand, govern, and build technology that is responsive to human values.

From broadening not only the scope of data used by researchers to expanding conceptions of what data is—and can be—Schwartz Reisman Faculty Affiliate Marlène Koffi makes three recommendations for social science researchers who want to leverage powerful new technologies like machine learning in their work.

SRI Engineering Lead Ron Bodkin says the European Commission’s recent white paper on AI falls short in assessing risk and proposing adequate regulation for the use of artificial intelligence across sectors and industries. Bodkin proposes some reflections and amendments that could address the breadth of potential risks and harms in a world rapidly implementing AI across all aspects of life.

What is the alignment problem and how can we encourage the development of human-aligned AI? What is normativity and how do humans channel appropriate behaviour? If normativity is central to human intelligence, how can it apply to artificial intelligence as well?

The COVID Alert app is a useful tool in the fight against the pandemic. But it’s also a concerning indicator of the increasingly decisive role “Big Tech” plays in policy choices. Lisa Austin, David Lie, and Wendy Wong co-wrote an opinion piece about the design and privacy implications of the new federally-approved exposure notification app.

New work from SRI Director Gillian Hadfield and Jack Clark of OpenAI proposes a novel regulatory framework for ensuring AI can be used safely, ethically, and with the public interest in mind. Market-based incentives like competition, positive industry reputation, and expanded market access can spur efficiency and accountability in the ways in which we develop regulatory innovations.

The pace of change in cities—technological, social, economic—seems to speed up day by day, posing challenges to municipal government structures established in different times. More than 50 experts from academia, government, non-profits, and the private sector gathered for four working sessions to find solutions to crucial problems cropping up in city governance.