Sweden's deputy prime minister says countries should “recognise the risk rather than avoid it” when a royal delegation visits Mila.
Sweden has some of the most comprehensive artificial intelligence (AI) regulations in the world. Meanwhile, Canada sought find balance between safety and promotion of innovation. However, both countries are now pushing for widespread adoption so they can join the A-Team.
“Team A will create and shape the tools. Team B will use whatever tools others provide… Sweden cannot afford to be country B.”
On Thursday, Sweden's deputy prime minister and industry chief accompanied Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and his wife Queen Silvia, as well as many scientists and industry leaders, on a visit to Mila, a federally funded artificial intelligence research center in Montreal. Participants included Mila's scientific director Hugo Larochelle, Quebec Economy Minister Christine Frechette, Cohere's chief artificial intelligence officer Joël Pinault, and Sam Ramadori, CEO of artificial intelligence security organization LawZero, who came together to discuss the importance of collaboration on artificial intelligence research and the development of independent artificial intelligence technologies.
Bush told the crowd that “not adopting AI poses a very real risk.”
“This means slow growth; it will mean weakening government services and dependence on others,” Bush said.
She added that while Sweden is cautious about AI, it also recognizes the need to move forward.
“Team A will create and shape tools. Team B will use whatever tools others provide, with weaker competitiveness and weaker sovereignty,” Bush said. “Sweden cannot afford to be a B country.”
Sweden is a European Union (EU) country, which means it is subject to I HAVE actionwhich came into force last year. These rules prohibit manipulative or subliminal techniques, social ranking, and real-time facial recognition in artificial intelligence tools. Considered one of the most comprehensive AI regulatory frameworks in the world, it has drawn criticism from the technology industry for perceived restrictions on innovation, prompting the European Commission roll back some of his measures.
Bush's speech mirrors the rhetoric of Canadian AI Minister Evan Solomon. He said Canada's artificial intelligence industry is at a “moment of crisis” and that he will enforce rules that are “easy, hard and right” that don't stifle innovation. IN Logical SummitSolomon said AI adoption is as important as AI sovereignty or control over the technology's supply chain and data.
Like Canada, Sweden sought to accept national AI strategy and support homegrown talent. The country of 10 million has produced several prominent tech players. Buy now, pay later Fintech startup Klarna went public in the US this year, and artificial intelligence startup Lovable reported annual revenues of $200 million.
Under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada tried find balance between AI innovation and regulation by signing international treaties on AI safety. However, he failed to pass laws regulating AI.
The purpose of the Swedish visit to Mila was to familiarize the Scandinavian country with the possibilities of cooperation with the artificial intelligence research center in Quebec. Since its founding in 1993 by Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio, Mila has grown into a world-renowned artificial intelligence research center. Mila and its affiliates, the Vector Institute in Toronto and the Alberta Institute for Machine Intelligence in Edmonton, are funded by the federal government through Pan-Canadian AI Strategy.
Also present at the Mile event was a panel of industry and academic experts in the field of artificial intelligence. In response to BetaKit's question about what AI regulation would ideally look like in Canada, Elena Fersman, vice president and head of AI innovation and incubation at Swedish telecom company Ericsson, responded: “Don't regulate technology, regulate its use.” Pineau and Coher agreed that Canada should adopt this approach.
Solomon said his office will unveil an artificial intelligence strategy in the new year. He is currently reviewing materials from his Artificial Intelligence Task Force consists of industry representatives and researchers, and has submitted more than 11,000 public submissions—the largest number of public submissions to a working group in Canadian history.
In an interview with Mila Pino, who was part of the working group, she told BetaKit that her report focused on the elements needed to achieve trust in AI.
“I really emphasized the fact that to achieve trust, in addition to security, you need to think about literacy. You need to think about transparency. I think we need a holistic approach to building trust,” Pino said.
Cohere is an enterprise artificial intelligence scaling company headquartered in Toronto that has been called “Canada's AI champion” by some government ministers. Pino added that the visit to Sweden was “exciting” as Cohere hopes to explore partnership opportunities in Europe and does not yet have a presence in Sweden.
Image courtesy of Mila. Photo by Maryse Boyce.
