Season 8 Episode 6: Indigenous Governance, Digital Sovereignty and AI Policy
Season 8 Episode 6 [download this episode (MP3, 48.0 MB)]
In this episode Elizabeth chats with Jonathan Dewar, Chief Executive Officer of the First Nations Information Governance Centre and a member of the inaugural board of directors of the National Council for Reconciliation, to explore Indigenous governance principles in AI. They discuss how the First Nations principles OCAP (Ownership, Control, Access and Possession), developed nearly 30 years ago, offers a foundation for thinking about data sovereignty, collective flights, and accountability as AI begins to blur the line between tool and decision-maker. Jonathan shares how First Nations are moving from principles to practice by building the institutions, capacity, and networks needed by First Nations for First Nations data governance, including the gaps in Canada’s Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program.
Additional Resources:
Look into the First Nations Information Governance Centre to learn about how First Nations’ data and information will be collected, protected, used, or shared.
Check out the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples report by the United Nations to learn about data sovereignty.
Read Pathways to First Nations’ Data and Information Sovereignty to learn more about collective rights and interest in data and information.
To learn more about the Oka Crisis read Remembering the Siege on Kanehsata:ke — July 11, 1990
Read Robots Behaving Badly which uses an anti-colonial and Indigenous framework that considers what artificial intelligence means for political power, society and the relationships that sustain communities.
Check out Jonathon on LinkedIn!
Contributors:
Host: Elizabeth Dubois
Research Lead: Julianne Bernier Robert
Transcript: Areej El-Sharif
Audio Editing: Sarah Pledge-Dickson
Translation: Julianne Bernier Robert
Publishing and Promotion: Aaron Brisson
Producer: Sarah Pledge-Dickson
Episode Transcript: Season 8 Episode 6: Indigenous Governance, Digital Sovereignty and AI Policy
Read the transcript below or download a copy in the language of your choice:
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:00:05] Welcome to Wonks and War Rooms, where political communication theory meets on the ground strategy. I'm your host, Elizabeth Dubois. I'm an associate professor and university research chair in politics, communication and technology at the University of Ottawa. My pronouns are she/her. This season, we're talking about social and policy issues surrounding uses and governance of artificial intelligence. Today, we're talking with Jonathan Dower about Indigenous governance principles in AI. Jonathan, can you introduce yourself, please?
Jonathan Dewar: [00:00:31] Certainly. So I'm Jonathan Dewer. My day job is as the Chief Executive Officer for the First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC). I also do a bunch of other things, including I am a member of the inaugural board of directors for the National Council for reconciliation. So another data related endeavor, but also connected to my, you know, longer standing work in the area of truth and reconciliation. And personally, I'm a member of the Wendat Nation through my mother and grandmother, but I actually grew up here in the National Capital Region, in Ottawa, in the unceded Unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg nation.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:01:05] Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here. I am really looking forward to our conversation today. We're talking about Indigenous governance principles and what that might mean in the context of shaping AI, which obviously you have a lot of experience thinking about and working on. So I thought we'd start off kind of broad. When I say Indigenous governance principles in this context, what does that mean to you? Like, what are you thinking about?
Jonathan Dewar: [00:01:29] Well, given that that is my day job, I'm immediately thinking of thousands of things. And really, it is our job to talk about this stuff at FNIGC. That doesn't mean it's easy. Like even finding the starting point for where to get into conversations because like the terminology really matters. And so, you know, if you start the conversation with Indigenous governance principles, you know, I'm inclined to take it to sort of Indigenous data sovereignty, right? And so, you know, if you or if any of your listeners have ever heard me talk about this before or others, you know, working in the First Nations data sovereignty space, you know, that while we are very pleased with, you know, the evolution of the discourse around these issues over the last 10 to 15 years, you know, the prevalence of terminology like Indigenous data sovereignty in a Canadian context, we always very quickly have to remind people that Indigenous important word exists in international contexts, absolutely exists in Canadian contexts as well. If we start the conversation with data governance or information governance principles, let's put it in that larger context of sovereignty and then information sovereignty within a Nations, you know, sovereign rights. And so then from there you get to the okay, so what does that mean? You know, there's a theory, there's a concept, but what does it mean in practice, in real practical terms? And that's when you get to the establishment of values and principles and principles you can get to. Frameworks and tools and and maybe even further into things that are truly formal, like codified systems. And I think many people who are listening to this would be familiar with the First Nations principles of OCAP, Ownership, Control, Access and Possession. Because it's been around for 28 years. This is an incredible strength of, you know, thought leadership, not just in Canada, but internationally. So First Nations in Canada, you know, needed to develop ethical frameworks and governance principle frameworks for particular reasons. And this work is, you know, nearly 30 years old now, 30 years into its implementation.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:03:33] That's really helpful. Thank you for kind of talking through that sort of funnel down to the very specifics and also setting the stage for this discussion of data sovereignty and information sovereignty. You mentioned OCAP already. You went really quick. I do think a lot of our listeners will have already heard about it, but this podcast also gets used in classrooms where maybe people won't have heard about it before. So could we take just a minute or two to talk through what those four components are?
Jonathan Dewar: [00:04:00] So first, a bit of a history lesson because I think everything has to exist in context, right? And so the historical context is important. So if you look back into the mid 1990s, when First Nations like this is coming out of the Mohawk resistance, Canadians might know it as the Oka Crisis. In 1996, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Report came out. So some really important paradigm shifting work had been underway for a long time, but certainly in like incredible, incredible work in the span of 5 or 6 years. And it just so happened that where First Nations were asserting sovereignty on many fronts, not exclusively in that realm of resistance around land. First Nations were left out of three key population surveys by the government of Canada. Right? Because First Nations had been asserting sovereignty, had been demanding control over these types of information gathering initiatives. And so Canada chose to leave First Nations out. Well, you know, for communities, for Nations that are already facing, you know, a real challenges with the availability of access to quality information. That was a real blow. Like, not only could Canada not make national or federal policy decisions, but First Nations, nobody was served by that decision. Now, so big challenge for First Nations and to their credit, the leadership of the day, but particularly the frontline health professionals of the day, those thought leaders, to their credit, they turned that challenge into an opportunity which was advocating for a truly by First Nations for First Nations National Health survey.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:05:35] So all these years later, you know, we continue to operate what's known as the First Nations Regional Health Survey. It is a national survey, but we call it regional because it's the ten regions choosing to come together at regional levels. But in this particular instance, it was about a. By First Nations for First Nations approach to collecting health information from First Nations communities. And so they very quickly got to the need for a set of principles to be established, that if you are working with First Nations to collect information from First Nations about First Nations, then some bedrock principles had to be established. And that's when ownership, control, access and then later possession were established. And so the OCAP principles were finalized. In 1998, national leadership, regional leadership across the country endorsed those principles. And ideally, Nations have the capacity to do that really necessary technical, legal, you know, leadership informed work to say for us, ownership means for us, control means for us. And so from principle to practice is, you know, something that we have been trying to advance over the last nearly three decades is principles are great, but they're not enough.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:06:49] It's an incredible strength that this kind of work was developed off the side of the capacity made available to develop a national health survey. But it underscored the need for First Nations to have more systemic and institutional capacity, because you shouldn't be doing this kind of stuff off the corner of your desk. It's really it's fundamental. Like Canada doesn't build its systems and its institutions in this way, right? It sets them up for success. And all these years later, where First Nations are now implementing a national First Nations data governance strategy, that is a key focus. Yes, we have all of these incredible developments over the years, you know, where people literally slept on floors as they traveled around the country to come together with minimal resources to be successful in developing this unprecedented by First Nations for First Nation information gathering initiative. We've been through those years, and now we are at the point of successfully delivering a strategy. Reasonable success in beginning to receive resources to implement that strategy. And that strategy is all about ensuring that we build the by First Nations for First Nations systems and institutions within those systems that allow for that, the theory and the concepts to move into practices.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:08:07] Yeah, that and it's kind of incredible to think about how these principles, which seem very obviously really important in the context of AI, have been developed for quite a while now. Right? This history goes back for a long time, and it speaks to how essential data has been well before. AI has become like the newest technology that makes use of all of our data all of the time. It makes me think a lot about the arguments that machine learning practitioners and the other folks who are on the technical side have of like, well, we just need more data. The more data we have, the better it's all going to be. And so then there's questions about is the data always organized the same way? Or when do you choose to let your data be in or not? In thinking about things like the European right to be forgotten? Like there's so many components here about how data can get collected and organized and used that then have implications on how it interacts with all kinds of other data. So I guess a short way to get back to what I'm saying is, one of the issues that comes up with all of this data is questions of interoperability, right? Like, can you actually use this data meaningfully in conjunction with other kinds of data in conjunction with different kinds of tools? When you talk about going from principles down to the actual practical specifics of it, and for very good reason, there's lots of different choices that are made in different contexts by different Nations. Are there efforts within the context of OCAP or beyond that in your work that's trying to sort through that.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:09:49] Yeah. So there's a lot of work being done. Let's not pretend that AI exploded onto the scene, you know, 6 or 12 months ago. You know, when Canada announced that it would develop a national strategy. Right? This stuff has been building for a long time. And now it's true that we've all been put into a catapult of sorts, you know, moving at at great speed. Part of that is like the technology itself and maybe the people behind the technology, the people driving the technology. But the technology itself is rapidly evolving. But then, you know, you put it into this in our case, like the national or federal context. And yes, there's this huge impetus for First Nations to get ahead of these AI and information governance or data sovereignty issues, because it's yet another thing that could do great harm, and not just for First Nations, but I mean, for Canadians, for, for humans generally. But where First Nations have, you know, long experience with a very deep legacy of information being used poorly, information being used against the interests of First Nations outside of the control of First Nations. I mean, you know, that's the legacy that we have. I think AI presents another frontier that we have to be very, very careful about. But like, there are no short answers to any of these questions. And we won't cover all of it. But like, even in the question that you asked, I feel like I need to return to some definitional work, right? Because we need a working definition of like, what is First Nations information then, right? So let's take an admittedly oversimplified way of thinking about this, at least as a jumping off point, right? So what is First Nations information? Well, you're not going to find one definition.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:11:23] But generally speaking, in the work that we do, First Nations across the country have identified First Nations information as anything from First Nations, anything about First Nations, but also information from and about First Nations lands, waters and non-human relatives. Right. So like, it's a huge sphere. It's a huge scope. So that's one thing that we need to do is put that kind of definitional work out there and then start to identify how we problematize that in the different ecosystem or sectoral areas that we would need to work in. And AI and technology is one of them. But we're talking about AI, you know, in health data, for example, so obviously all of these spheres overlap. So that's one way that we can approach definitions. The other, you know, sort of oversimplified way of talking about it again, for the purpose of starting the conversation is if a body of information identifies or has the potential to identify a rights holding collective a nation, than it is that Nations or that rights holding collectives collective right to assert its collective rights over that information. So what are collective rights? People generally have an understanding of collective rights, but if you go to Canadian law for definition on collective rights, you will quickly find that it's either not there or woefully inadequate for First Nations in particular. So where First Nations have from time immemorial had deep, deep understandings of the rights that individuals have, but then also the rights that collectives have.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:12:49] There's an incredible foundation of strength to build on. But you put First Nations into the Canadian context, even the very contemporary Canadian context, with all of those advances and gains that we've made, Canadian law still falls down on this issue for First Nations. How would a First Nation assert its collective rights over information? Like, what would it use? Right. So gross oversimplification there. And to take it further, we have to think through some practical use case type approaches. So I, as an individual, have every right to make an informed decision to share my information, including my First Nations identifiers. This is me as an individual. My Nation doesn't police the use of the First Nation identifier that is attached to me. And so, you know, if I make an informed decision to share it, or if I make an implied, informed decision by participating in a system where that, you know, attaches to me administratively, the nation's not policing that. But when my information as an individual gets rolled up into a body of information with others you know, if there's a body of information with that Nation identifier attached to it, then, you know, theoretically, conceptually, it is that nation's right to assert its collective rights over that information. So what do we do in those kinds of situations? Well, if you are collecting information from a First Nation, like through the First Nations Regional Health Survey, those kinds of issues and the solutions to those issues are built in. But where it's not built in is where First Nations people travel through other systems.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:14:25] And. Right. So First Nations are Canadians, and they're also citizens or members of their Nations. Right. And so, you know, they have these sort of two realities. And we travel through Canadian systems and our information as individuals. But also these First Nations identifiers attach to us sometimes in deliberate and meaningful ways, and sometimes in ways that you know, are problematic or unnecessary. It just sort of perpetuates this issue of what is First Nations information? How do we manage individual rights? How do we manage collective rights in these larger ecosystemic and institutional contexts? Well, listen, you know, we work regularly with the national players from Statistics Canada to CIHI [Canadian Institute for Health Information] to, you know, Genome Canada. These are the questions that those Canadian institutions are also asking. And fortunately, First Nations, Inuit and Métis at different stages are advancing the solutions to the issues we need to resolve. But they're also the solutions to the issues that Canada has with these questions. So if Canada keeps its foot to the pedal on sustained investment in these solutions, systemic and institutional capacity. We will begin to eliminate those barriers and gaps. But if not, we just go back to where we've always been. AI, we're at the tip of the iceberg of understanding AI. I mean, you know, you take Canadians sort of generally, I think if they know anything beyond ChatGPT, I think it's a very small percentage of people who have any like a sophisticated understanding beyond that. Uh, not to, you know, deride anyone. It's incredibly complex and.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:16:03] And it's so many things.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:16:04] AI is so many things. Yeah. And so anyways, with AI, another way that we talk about this is like First Nations already have a problem with humans in analog or the digital systems. We've come to understand using First Nations information. What does it mean if all of a sudden AI is used as a tool or AI transcends tools? So in these systems we've historically operated in or the systems we are building or improving on right now. If we haven't purpose built the truly respectful systems, the ways that we're improving on them right now, what we say is people are held accountable. So accountability is absolutely central. So if we make an informed decision, if we go into a relationship based on trust, it's, you know, transparency, accountability, reciprocity, all of those important values slash principles. But accountability is really, really key. So people can be held accountable and the tools that they wield, at the end of the day, it's the person who was held accountable. But AI begins to blur that line because it is possible, certainly the way people talk about the AI of the future, and maybe it's a near future, maybe it's a still a distant future, I don't know. But the AI of the future, making decisions like a human would, or beyond what a human would do. How do we resolve these questions of respect and accountability? Like it's absolutely core to these conversations.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:17:27] Yeah. And we can't figure that out without agreeing on what we're talking about specifically, which has historically been really challenging. And there's, as we've said, so many things that constitute AI, it makes it really difficult because you also have to imagine what it might become next. But I want to go back for a second. You were talking about this idea of like collective rights. And just to add one extra little level of nuance and to shout out to another episode this season in an episode with Jane Bailey, we're talking about rethinking what consent looks like. And there we also got into this kind of individual versus collective rights discussion. And one of the things that we talked about with Jane was this idea of algorithmic or calculated publics. So the more we have these giant data crunching machines that are making their decisions based on all of this data that's being kind of vacuumed up. There are groups of people that are being imagined or calculated by these AI machines, and sometimes those might start to look a lot like a particular nation, or they might look like some other vision of it that ultimately is First Nations data. When we think about it in, you know, the broader understandings of what counts, but then is completely opaque to us, right? Like, we don't know what the machine has done unless there is some radical transparency rules that get put into place. And so that, I imagine, is also really complicating how we understand what it means to actually have ownership and control and access for your own data.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:19:11] Yeah. I mean, the way that we talk about AI now and the way that AI is promised, you know, in a near or perhaps still distant future may make consent obsolete, irrelevant, or just, you know, incredibly, incredibly problematic. I mean, we're already seeing like the hallucinations that happen, right? And then the hallucinations are propagated and, and eventually, you know, that could overwhelm truth, right? And so this, this is absolutely very problematic. And so if we, if we go to like, what are the practical solutions to these things that we've surfaced, you know, does that mean that each First Nation must have. Right. It's entirely closed system where it has its lands, it has its technology, it has its cloud like, sure, we could we could absolutely model those types of things. I think it has to be practical solutions. So it may be that at the value and principle level, we are saying First Nations need to consider these things like what does it mean to own? Well, if you have your land and you have resources to make these things true on your lands where you have, you know, the legal jurisdictional authority you require for your definition of sovereignty? Absolutely. We would say establish the values and principles and move from there.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:20:27] But we're immediately faced with some practical restraints, right? Not every first Nation is in the same situation. Not every First Nation has access to whether it's government funding or capital. Right? And so it is highly unlikely that these smaller populations are going to be able to go it alone on everything. So you get to the when does it benefit us to come together? And what do we have to do to make sure that we come together as larger collectives, maintaining sovereignty at the Nation level, but ensuring that collectively, you know, we're agreeing to what our principles are and how we can move something forward. There's the economies of scale argument as well, right? Like, you know, we are not 40 million people. We are a couple of million people. So we're Canada has scale issues. First Nations, Inuit and Métis as well have these same or similar scale issues. So I think what First Nations need to do is this is an example of the capacity we need to have, and so the resources so that we have the capacity to actually be able to table all of these types of questions. It's not like FNIGC owns the space and you know, resource FNIGC and we'll do all the work.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:21:34] No, no, no, we need to create the networks of networks of networks to ensure that this work is being advanced. So First Nations with their organizations and institutions, which would include an FNIGC, working with scholars, working with those who, you know, manage Canadian infrastructure. We have to purpose build these relationships and networks. At the end, the interconnectivity, the interoperability that I think you were referencing. Right. And, uh, you know, that work is definitely underway, but where Canada might be behind some other larger countries, slash economies, First Nations, Indigenous peoples generally you know, around the world are, you know, are disadvantaged exponentially more. So this is a problem we would like to see resolved. And I'll just sort of keep returning to the message of Canada can't fix the problems it has with its commitments and obligations to indigenous data sovereignty. Remember, UNDRIP [United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples] is law, and data sovereignty is referenced in UNDRIP. Canada can't meet its commitments and obligations if we don't fix these things, and Canada can't go it alone on the solutions, it needs to be the true Nation to Nation relationship, where Canada and First Nations are identifying the solutions to the things that need to be solved together.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:22:51] And so, practically speaking, what does that look like? Some of it is already underway, as you've mentioned. What are the seeds of it? Where do you, in our best case scenario, where this works as perfectly as possible? What does that look like?
Jonathan Dewar: [00:23:05] Yeah, it's I mean, it's a great, great question. I mean, I'll be perfectly honest. FNIGC, you know, we have limited capacity to do work beyond what we are mandated to do. And yet, you know, we are trusted to take on these new and emerging issues. So there's like some real think tank laboratory type work that needs to be done around these questions to get past the oversimplification of this use case to like actual practical understanding of what this means. So that is definitely a path we are on. And I see our partners across the ten regions that we work with in support of the Assembly of First Nations and other First Nations entities, is we need all of the strategies around these things to align, and in particular for First Nations, because we're such, we're a much smaller population. So the alignment of the focus is one necessary thing. I think we're making some progress there. We could do more for sure, but then we start pushing the envelope on these questions. So a really practical example would be in its sprint to something. AI Canada had a nearly billion dollar opportunity, the Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program, right. There was no pathway for a First Nations entity or let's say more broadly, an Indigenous entity to, you know, go through that door. So what we were really talking about there is like, that's for Canadian infrastructure in our conversations with partners around the country, you know, we know that those big consortia of post-secondary institutions and Canadian institutions and in some case, private and not for profit, not NGO partners, we're looking to indigenous partners. And so that's great. But I think Canada needs to be clear that like, that was the only path.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:24:45] It was the path for Canadian infrastructure. So that means I think any good researcher would come up with the question of, okay, if this is all we're talking about, this opportunity is Canadian infrastructure. How do we do First Nations data sovereignty within Canadian infrastructure? And so that is a question that we have posed, and we will be looking to advance. I'm not saying that First Nations data sovereignty within Canadian infrastructure is the way it should be done. I'm saying right now that's all we've been afforded. So that is a key question right now. So where and I don't know when the announcements are going to be about who were the successful proponents for this big funding, but this compute infrastructure is going to be built somewhere. There's going to be access made to researchers to advance Canadian interests. And we have posed this question, can there be First Nations data sovereignty within this Canadian infrastructure? And then, of course, in another room we need to be in, which is the, but there needs to be First Nations ecosystem, institution infrastructure as well. Ideally, everything would be purpose built and we would be purpose building this incredibly complicated matrix or spider web or whatever the analogy is, the way that things come together, weave together, or need to diverge where they need to diverge. And, you know, again, sounds a little self-serving to say, given the, you know, the name of our organization, but governance is the solution to these questions of what needs to come together and how would we manage that, what needs to diverge and how would we manage that? It's governance.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:26:14] Yeah, yeah. And this is a theme that's coming up in each of the episodes this season where, you know, we're not going to find solutions to the potential problems or maximize the potential opportunities of AI in its various forms. If we don't have good governance because we don't have the systems in place to make sure all the people who need to be in the conversation are in the conversation, all of the things that we want to ensure in terms of like safety and equity are built in. And so governance, yeah, it just becomes so essential. On that front I wanted to ask a little bit about governance at the kind of tools level or as governance shapes the design incentives, I suppose, around how these kinds of tools get created. So maybe a layer back from the data. One of the things that some scholars at Macquarie University in Australia have talked about coming from an Indigenous scholarship kind of critical view. Their title of their article, the one that I read most recently, is like Robots Behaving Badly. And their whole argument is like, none of them are behaving badly. They're behaving exactly as they're designed to in a system where, you know, Silicon Valley values have been driving speed and profit, and the idea of safety or equity or community is just like, not the thing that's prioritized for shareholders unless a governance system is changed. In their article, they talk about, you know, imagine we could just use some of the very long standing Indigenous governance principles that you can see worldwide of, you know, a sense of responsibility towards community or future generations, just as two quick examples. Imagine we developed AI governance in that kind of way. Like, what could we do with that? What harms might be mitigated? What opportunities might show up? And that's, you know, really compelling and appealing to me. What's your thoughts about how that could fit in with Canada at the federal level, their approach right now? Is that something that we could imagine working? Are there problems there or risks?
Jonathan Dewar: [00:28:21] Yeah. I mean, we're definitely in a genie out of the bottle situation, right? I think there still need to be a lot of people talking about what's wrong. And I think many of those people are they're not naysayers. They are simply reminding people of how problematic it is to, you know, move fast and break things. So it's not unreasonable for there to be many, many, many voices saying this must be sustainable. So solve the problem of cooling and the impact on the environment, particularly the demands on water systems, right? You know, the waste that is produced. Absolutely. That needs to be part of the conversation. The genie out of the bottle context is nobody's going to stop. Nobody's going to slow down and say, we won't do AI until we've done that more principle based thing, you know, which frankly is too bad. You know, that's probably the better thing for the world. But so what that means is all players, all actors need to invest heavily in those things while we are continuing to move forward. And, you know, like, I'd love to be an idealist and say like, we only ever take the right step as opposed to, you know, in our work, we often talk about [how] it's not about best practice, it's about wise practice. And sometimes it's about, you know, what's the wisest practice available to us? It's the, you know, it's the wisdom to understand holistically all aspects of, of the question at every step.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:29:44] Well, I don't think the tech sector does that. I don't think capitalist systems are built to do that. It's the reality we live in though. So I think we have to balance the idealism with the sense of what is practical and what is ultimately practicable. What can we actually do. So I don't think it is unreasonable to say that there needs to be a correction in the way investments are being made, there needs to be a far greater investment in all of these sustainability environmental protection pieces. Absolutely. And then we've just gotten to, you know, how AI might be in play, you know, in some more sustainable way. And then we get to your governance question. Yes, absolutely. I've read that paper recently. Colleagues around the world are talking about these things. That's the purpose build AI within systems of accountability, the way that indigenous, you know, governance systems have historically, traditionally and very much contemporarily framed them. And so it is not unreasonable to say, if we can build systems where, you know, we can have trust as part of the relationship, or at least trust that the accountability will ensure there are more good actors than bad actors. There's no reason that that can't be a central component of an AI system. Absolutely no reason why not. And that's what people really want is Skynet and for the robots to take over. Then I just think it absolutely can be done.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:31:14] Yeah, yeah. Let's hope we're far from Skynet. But you never know. And things change real fast. We are coming up on time. I've really enjoyed our conversation, but I want to end instead of a pop quiz this season, I'm ending with one question for everyone. And that is what is the one thing or one thing that you think policy makers are missing or maybe need to be reminded of right now?
Jonathan Dewar: [00:31:42] Yeah. So anything I've said so far is in the context of, you know, I don't speak for First Nations, right? Even in my FNIGC role, we don't speak for First Nations. So I, you know, a lot of these things are, you know, my opinion, strongly held opinions. Um, so policy makers right now, I mean, the world is in a variety of different crises. Climate change is absolutely one of them. I think many progressives in Canada are dismayed at, you know, the rollback on commitments to combat climate change. So that's a big, big issue. It's political. It's also geopolitical. But that's absolutely something that is on many people's minds. You know, we're in a trade war with the US, whether it lasts a little while or a long time, we don't know. And so the government and then the public servants, you know, working to support the government, they're in crisis mode. The long view on law and policy as opposed to the short view. Right. Like for me, the slippage from meaningful discourse around reconciliation to now more of a focus on economic reconciliation like that matters. That terminology, that shift in terminology really matters. And that happens government to government, but it is something that I think Canadians should be paying attention to. So if we're talking about these sort of, uh, indigenous data sovereignty, Indigenous governance principle issues I would say that Canada needs to keep its eye well, all players, not just Canada as in the federal government, but all of us who have responsibilities here in these lands known now known as Canada. We have to keep our eye on the long term and not just the, uh, the political cycle that we're in. Yes. Uh, there are geopolitical issues. Yes, there is a trade war, but other things matter and so from a policy perspective, it would be ideally like no shortcuts. Let us commit to the, the wisest decisions available to us that incrementally perhaps get us to those more idealized futures that we envision.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:33:51] That's fantastic. Thank you. And thank you for this conversation. It's been really interesting and I think the listeners will enjoy it.
Jonathan Dewar: [00:33:56] Well you're welcome.
Elizabeth Dubois: [00:33:58] All right. Thanks for listening. That was our episode on indigenous governance principles and how that shapes AI or could shape AI. As always, we've got a bunch of different links to resources in the show notes, and you can head over to polcommtech.com for annotated transcripts available in English and French. They link out to a bunch more resources and further reading. This season of Wonks and War Rooms is supported in part by the University of Ottawa's Office of Vice President, Research and Innovation, my University Research Chair in Politics, Communication and Technology, the Faculty of Arts and the center for law, Technology and Society. I also want to acknowledge that I'm recording from the traditional and unceded territory of the Algonquin people, and I want to pay respect to the Algonquin people acknowledging their long standing relationship with this unceded territory.
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