Heritage minister reconvenes advisory group on online harms to consult on AI chatbots

OTTAWA — The federal heritage minister has reconvened a group of researchers and advocates that had been tasked with advising the government on how to regulate tech platforms, as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government weighs how it wants to tackle the issue of online safety.

Heritage Minister Marc Miller’s office announced that the minister met with the group on Wednesday, saying its findings “ will subsequently go on to inform ongoing legislative work in various aspects of online safety.”

“The Government of Canada will seek the group’s expertise and advice on a limited and targeted set of issues that have emerged since the last consultation due to significant technological changes, including in the field of artificial intelligence, chatbots and AI companions, as well as other evolving trends related to online services,” the statement on Thursday read. 

Miller, in the statement from his office, said that, “a s a father and a grandfather, this is deeply personal to me.”

That group, comprised of researchers, online child safety advocates and professors who specialize in the areas of online radicalization, cybersecurity and internet governance, was initially struck back in 2022 as the federal government consulted on its efforts to bring forward legislation that sought to regulate social media companies to better protect users from online dangers.

Those efforts culminated in Bill C-63, known as the Online Harms Act, which died when former prime minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament last year.

Since then, many stakeholders, advocates and parents whose children were harmed through internet-based crimes, have called on Carney’s government to reintroduce some version of that bill, which would have compelled social media companies to present safety plans to the federal government and remove the most harmful content online.

No timelines have been set for when Carney’s government will bring forward a new bill, with Miller tasked with leading the efforts.

More urgency was injected into the issue when last month it was revealed that OpenAI had decided against flagging to police concerning messages the shooter who opened fire on schoolchildren and members of their own family in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., had exchanged with ChatGPT months earlier.

Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon, who has confirmed Miller would be the lead on issues related to online harms, has spent the past few weeks in discussions with the company, speaking directly with its CEO, Sam Altman, about safety changes the government wants to see made, including conducting a review of past decisions not to flag troubling ChatGPT exchanges to police.

“All options are on the table,” Solomon reiterated to reporters on Wednesday. Solomon has also signalled his intention to bring forward his own bill related to AI and privacy.

When it comes to online safety, Carney’s government is looking at what other countries have done, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, the latter of which became the first in the world to ban social media for children under 16.

Speaking in Tokyo last week, Carney said given the federal government’s last bill failed to pass through Parliament that Canada was “lagging” behind others in the area of online safety.

Carney said that part of the deliberations on how to tackle the issue would include looking at an “age of majority,” with the prime minister saying his mind was not yet made up on the idea of banning social media for children.

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, whose party opposed the Liberals’ last online safety bill, said earlier this week that on the question of banning social media for minors, it was something his caucus was studying, but did not yet have a position.

“As a father whose kids are just getting to that age where they are starting to have more and more online access, I worry about the content that they will interact with,” Poilievre said.

National Post

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