Canada's AI strategy needs to avoid excessive precaution

Canada’s AI strategy should lean more toward making room for experimentation and rewarding success, and less toward ill-targeted pre-emptive rules and regulations. Photo by Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press/Postmedia files

Ottawa’s forthcoming AI strategy needs to walk a tightrope between two equally important principles: safeguarding Canadians from possible misuses of AI but also giving our private and academic sectors the leeway to use Canada’s AI strengths to develop and commercialize new technologies and products. Commercial success — including adoption by both the private and public sectors here at home — can help AI generate new opportunities for businesses , raise Canada’s dismal productivity performance and lift Canadians’ future incomes .

Canada has already made