Can*Con 2019: The Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts

Data is the New Gold Rush: Data is the limited resource required for the development of AI, and AI will transform the costs and profitabilities of many industries, much as the introduction of electricity and electronic transformed many economic ventures. Major technology companies in the United States and China have early head starts in the race for data, and in many cases, we ourselves are being mined for profitable resources. How does the competition for data affect people whose data is being collected? What kind of balance of privacy and economics should policy makers be looking for? How can children (and adults!) become data-rights-savvy enough to engage with elected officials? Companies have become large worldwide partly as a result of weakening anti-trust laws – is being big necessary for success in AI when the resource is information?