Manitoba would benefit from co-ordination on AI sector front

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This article was published 10/04/2024 (857 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As if it wasn’t a big enough challenge for society to figure out how to use artificial intelligence technology without leaving casualties in its wake, a recent headline from Bloomberg News proclaimed: “AI is exploding data centre energy use.”

It’s another example of how so much more needs to be learned about how to work with AI.

The recent announcement by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that $2.4 billion will be put aside in next week’s federal budget to provide access to computing capabilities and technical infrastructure to build capacity in Canada in the AI space was welcomed by its practitioners across the country.

Perhaps unlike the previous steps taken in the development of the digital economy — software development hubs or silicon chip manufacturing — AI deployment does not have to be concentrated in any particular place.

It’s easy to imagine that every sector of the economy — every sector of society — will somehow be affected by AI. That’s already happening.

But it’s also not hard to imagine the effectiveness of the deployment will be spotty and some jurisdictions will emerge as being more comfortable and confident in their approach than others.

Manitoba has its share of academics, large corporations and innovative entrepreneurs already exploring AI, so that shouldn’t preclude it from keeping pace. But Manitoba is a small place and the effective use of AI to increase productivity and sustainability probably would benefit from co-ordination.

The province already has some leading-edge collaboration work being done in AI in agriculture — an economic sector in which Manitoba is already a recognized leader.

Enterprise Machine Intelligence & Learning Initiative (EMILI), a not-for-profit organization, collaborates with more than 20 entities at a working farm (Rutherford Farms, near Grosse Isle) that tests and validates new AI technologies at commercial scale.

Jacqueline Keena, managing director of EMILI, said it’s the kind of work that will be an important contributor to the success of technology adoption.

“Because we are showing how it actually works,” she said. “We are actually trying it at a full-scale capacity then we are talking about it very openly in a public way, in a detailed way to an expert audience.

“We are risk-mitigating on their behalf. We are taking that first step.”

EMILI has been around since 2016. Before its Innovative Farms project began, Keena and the EMILI team had to spend a lot of time talking about just what AI is.

They are past that now, and she said the federal government’s AI funding announcement is “an exciting and necessary investment to ensure Canada’s global leadership in developing and harnessing the potential of AI.”

Among other things, there will be a $50-million investment in an AI safety institute, something Keena is also particularly keen on as she chairs the AI technology and jobs committee of the Manitoba premier’s business and jobs council.

At EMILI, they are thinking about issues such as nefarious use of the technology and awareness of the potential for job displacement, Keena added. “I’m not necessarily pointing at regulations, but I am thinking about standards and best practices and things like that.”

For those concerned about the potential for AI to destroy society, it is heartening organizations like EMILI are thinking seriously about the issues. However, there are some who worry about Manitoba’s propensity to sit on the sidelines while new technologies are introduced elsewhere, waiting to see how they play out.

Kelly Fournel, CEO of Tech Manitoba, regularly has to deal with that particular type of Manitoba conservatism.

However, AI is creating change at a much faster pace than previous iterations of the digital revolution, she said.

“A year ago, ChatGPT wasn’t even a thing,” Fournel said. “To see how it has already made such strides in impacting organizations and how they internally work, we can only imagine what is going to happen in two, three, five years time.”

There is amazing work being done in Manitoba in the AI space, but there’s not a lot of co-ordination, she added.

In 2022, Tech Manitoba and others developed an AI road map of sorts that was presented to the province, with the suggestion a dedicated co-ordinator be assigned to bring it to life. The idea was rejected.

“The hesitancy I have in terms of my overall enthusiasm for the potential for AI is because, at this point, we have not been able to engage either the current (NDP) or previous (PC) administration in terms of understanding the urgency of needing to be strategic about it,” Fournel said.

That’s not to say the provincial government elected last year won’t come around. But it could be folly for Manitoba to this time rely on others to do the groundwork on something that is clearly going to impact us all in ways we haven’t even imagined.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca