Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world at a pace that demands both caution and speed in determining how it should be used and managed.

The deployment of AI brings both threats and opportunities to the gathering and dissemination of the fact-based news that is essential to our democracy. As such, it is deeply intertwined with press freedom.

We have witnessed how the erosion of business models for traditional newsrooms has undermined the ability of journalists to fulfill their essential role of information providers and watchdogs.  More recently, the spread of misinformation and disinformation has polluted the media ecosystem and eroded trust in all media platforms.

Our perspective on AI is driven by our firm belief that Canada must have a robust, independent news media to inform our society, and safeguard our economy and democracy.

We encourage the government pursue a balanced approach that promotes AI development while erecting guardrails against abuse. 

The federal government must ensure the country remains at the forefront of AI technology and its deployment. 

We need to break the stranglehold that a handful of foreign — mostly American — mega-corporations maintain on the digital lives of Canadians, especially on social media platforms. AI deployment cannot be allowed to follow that same trajectory of concentrated ownership that serves the interests of foreign tech billionaires.

We warn, however, against pursuing sovereignty aims by boosting domestic providers while giving short shrift to the interests of consumers and content creators, including journalists and news media companies.

Protection of Canadians’ privacy and their intellectual property must be a hallmark for any federal approach to AI. Large language model systems that scrape websites and essentially steal content can be anathema to the maintenance of a robust news ecosystem.

AI-powered platforms can turbocharge efforts to spread disinformation and pollute public discourse. AI companies should be held accountable for the accuracy of their content, and provide full disclosure about sourcing.

While there are risks associated with AI, the technology will also provide enormous benefits which must be shared widely among the Canadian population to avoid further widening digital divides. 

Most Canadians are in a state of constant news deprivation and 2.5 million people in this country have almost no local news, according to a recent report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Can AI help fill these gaps? Possibly. Large language models can synthesize and organize vast amounts of data in support of journalism. 

Audience must come first. Ethical guidelines must guide every deployment of AI in the newsrooms. 

WPFC endorses the international News Media Alliance’s Global Principles on Artificial Intelligence and urges the government to incorporate these principles into its AI strategy.

Those principles include:

• Developers, operators and deployers of AI systems must respect intellectual property rights of content creators. 
• Publishers should receive adequate remuneration for the use of copyrighted content.
• Providers and deployers of AI systems should ensure accountability for their outputs. AI systems pose risks for competition and public trust in the quality and accuracy of content. 
• AI systems should be trustworthy. AI systems and models should be designed to promote trusted and reliable sources of information produced according to the same professional standards that apply to publishers and media companies. AI developers and deployers must use best efforts to ensure AI-generated content is accurate, correct and complete. 
• AI systems should be safe and address privacy risks. The collection and use of personal data in AI system design, training, and use should be lawful with full disclosure to users that is easy to understand. 

These core principles cannot be left to voluntary compliance. It is the role of government to ensure technological innovation does not harm essential institutions and instead benefits the broadest reaches of the Canadian population.

The public interest must drive Canada’s approach to adopting and implementing AI. Regulatory oversight is needed to mitigate risks and ensure the benefits of AI are widely shared. (A version of this editorial was submitted with Minister Evan Solomon’s AI Strategy Task Force.)