Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that artificial intelligence (AI) “is going to be used to help humanity,” after experts in that industry said the rapidly-evolving technology posed a real threat to the human race. Smith made the comments on Thursday at the Alberta Industrial Heartland Association Conference while promoting her province’s plan to attract more data centres. “One of the most viral posts going around the internet right now is the Anthropic researcher who just resigned and has a pretty dire doomsday warning about what could happen with AI superintelligence,” Smith said. “We have to understand that’s part of the unease that Albertans and Canadians are facing. We always have to make sure that they understand that AI is going to be used to help humanity.” Smith was referencing a social media post by Jacob Coxon, a researcher who worked at OpenAI and Anthropic and recently accused both companies of “gambling” with people’s lives. “Do not underestimate the power of this technology. These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources,” Coxon said in a social media post on Tuesday. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt.” On Friday, the post had gotten more than 165 million views and a response from Anthropic’s science lead, Evan Hubinger, who said, “We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!” On Thursday, Smith called the concerns Albertans have raised over AI “legitimate.” “Albertans are not interested in having a surveillance state. They don’t want to have cameras on every corner, their face printed … the kind of intrusiveness in their life that we’re seeing other jurisdictions allow,” Smith said. “We have to demonstrate to them that we’re not going to use them that way.” In a statement to CTV News Edmonton Friday, the minister of technology and innovations office said organizations handling personal information must comply with provincial and federal privacy laws, including laws around consent, collection and use. Alberta’s public bodies are also subject to privacy requirements when using AI-enabled systems, the statement said, and people must be told when their personal information is used by one of those systems. “Alberta’s government recognizes that advances in AI raise important questions about safety, accountability and governance. We take these concerns seriously and continue to monitor emerging risks and opportunities,” the minister’s office wrote. “At the same time, AI can offer significant opportunities to improve services for Albertans, support economic growth, and help us solve complex problems. “Alberta’s approach is to pursue these opportunities responsibly with the appropriate safeguards in place. This includes ensuring strong privacy, cybersecurity and governance protections, along with appropriate human oversight, to protect Albertans, support innovation, and maintain public trust.” With files from CTV News’ John Vennavally-Rao
