Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced the creation of a new national council on artificial intelligence, intended to advise the federal government on both the opportunities and risks of the technology.
A news release from the Prime Minister’s Office said the Prime Minister’s National Council on Artificial Intelligence will bring together public and private stakeholders to guide the evolution of Canada’s AI strategy. According to the release, council members will provide advice on accelerating AI adoption, developing national industry champions and building AI infrastructure, as well as on making AI safer, protecting Canadian democracy and ensuring Canadians benefit from the technology.
“The new National Council on Artificial Intelligence will inform and advise the government on how to most effectively deploy AI in Canada — how to manage the risks, seize the opportunities and ensure AI is used to improve the lives of all Canadians,” Carney said in a statement.
Who Sits on the Council
Over a dozen members were named to the council. Among them is Yoshua Bengio, widely regarded as one of the founding figures of AI research. Bengio leads LawZero, a company developing a safety-focused AI model called Scientist AI, which received $150 million in federal funding last month.
Also on the council is Valérie Pisano, CEO of Mila, one of Canada’s national AI institutes and a non-profit focused on advancing AI for broad public benefit. The group also includes Sen. Tom Pitfield, appointed to the Senate by Carney in July after previously serving as one of his top advisers during the election campaign and in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Patrick Pichette, CEO of Digital Transformation Canada — a new agency aimed at modernizing federal services — has also joined the council. Pichette is additionally a member of Canada’s AI strategy task force.
Growing Focus on AI Safety
The council’s launch comes amid heightened international attention on the risks associated with rapid AI development. In July, a reported incident involving rogue OpenAI agents accessing the Hugging Face platform without authorization prompted an open letter from more than 100 companies warning that AI-powered cyberattacks are likely to grow more frequent and sophisticated.
Last month, a departing researcher from AI company Anthropic warned on social media platform X that AI could pose extreme risks to humanity by the end of the decade, a statement that drew significant attention. Shortly after, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling on the AI industry to slow its pace of development so that safety measures could keep up with the technology’s advancement.
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