Senate of Canada: Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology

Asked by Senator Arnold about red lines, he said: "One general principle that covers a lot of ground is AI should be tested for all of these dangerous capabilities of misuse and loss of control. If companies are not able to provide strong assurances, scientifically speaking, that their systems will not cross those red lines and will not be dangerous to people, then they should not be allowed to deploy them."

Asked by Senator Senior for the top guardrails, he named transparency first: "companies have a duty to manage and evaluate their risks and to report that effort to the government and, as much as it doesn't violate their private interests, to the public as well."

Asked by the Chair for a second, he said: "Number two would be that the regulator has the lever to stop them when those risks are above a threshold."

Senator Senior asked: "do you think it is possible for there to be AI for good when it comes to young people?" Richardson answered "Yes, absolutely," adding that "before we look at the benefit side of it, we need to look at the safety side of things," and: "It seems like we've inverted everything in the digital world, where we accept harm and attempt to deal with it later, which is exactly what we're doing with the whole advent of social media. It's ridiculous."