AI Ethical Futures Lab | BC + AI Communities

Civil society and policy

A civic policy lab for public-interest AI in BC.

A facilitated community lab where people in BC discuss AI's impacts, compare lived experience, and turn public-interest questions into practical next steps.

Public-interest AI
Community input
Monthly lab sessions

View the next lab Start a policy conversation

People seated in a discussion circle at an AI Ethical Futures Lab meetup.

AI Ethical Futures Lab gathering.

Process

How the lab works.

Participatory facilitation
Structured prompts, small-group work, shared notes, and room agreements keep hard questions usable.

Community input
Community ideas are grouped and edited by people before they become public recaps, themes, or tools.

Public-interest frame
The lab centers the people affected by AI systems, not only vendors, consultants, or government processes.

Indigenous data sovereignty
Place-rooted AI work keeps protocol, governance, consent, and community review in view.

Transparent outputs
Public links, recaps, reading paths, and consultation references make the work easier to follow.

Respectful participation
Facilitated sessions give people a clear way to contribute, disagree, listen, and follow through.

AI Ethical Futures Lab speakers and attendees in conversation. — A recent AI Ethical Futures Lab gathering.

What happens in the room

From shared questions to practical next steps.

Land the question
Translate policy windows, public consultations, or civic concerns into plain-language prompts.

Gather lived experience
Invite builders, educators, artists, workers, researchers, and community members to name what they see.

Map themes
Cluster use cases, tensions, harms, hopes, and practical knowledge into a shared working surface.

Synthesize statements
Turn shared input into themes, questions, comments, and useful public recaps.

Publish useful next steps
Move from attention to resources: links, reading paths, toolkits, consultation responses, or follow-up rooms.

Public outputs

Public outputs and upcoming sessions.

Consultation recap

Ethics community response

A public example of the lab turning community input into civic participation around Canada's AI strategy.

Read the recap

Upcoming lab

AEFL #4: federal strategy

Wednesday, June 3, 2026, 6:30-8:30 PM PDT at Parker Street Studios.

Open event page

Civil society frame

People's AI Consultation

The wider consultation effort connected to AEFL's early work and public-interest approach.

See consultation

BC + AI membership

Support public-interest AI programs

Membership helps BC + AI keep community programs available across the province.

Become a member

Story so far

Turning AI ethics into civic practice.

AI Ethical Futures Lab brings community members, artists, technologists, educators, researchers, and people working near public policy together around the public questions raised by AI.

The lab makes room for practical hope and real concern at the same time. Participants look at how AI affects work, creativity, privacy, knowledge, sovereignty, education, and everyday life.

Its early work includes People's AI Consultation sessions, federal strategy monitoring, reading-list development, and tools that help people participate in AI policy conversations.

AI Ethical Futures Lab #4 event artwork.

Upcoming lab

Join the next AI Ethical Futures Lab.

AEFL #4 brings the community together to discuss Canada’s AI strategy and what BC can contribute to a more public-interest AI future.

Themes from the work

What the lab keeps in view.

AEFL’s early public work keeps practical AI governance themes visible for community members, public leaders, educators, workers, artists, and researchers.

Economic justice

Human agency

Work and livelihoods

Creativity and culture

Social inclusion

Knowledge integrity

Sovereignty

Privacy and governance

Policy partners

Invite a civic AI conversation.

Bring AEFL into a consultation, briefing, workshop, or community-facing policy question.

Start a conversation

Participants

Bring a question into the room.

Attend a lab with a policy thread, community concern, research question, or practical tool that needs hands on it.

View the next lab

Members

Support the community.

BC + AI membership helps keep public-interest AI programs available for people across BC.

Become a member

Community

Serious policy work still needs people who want to be in the room together.

AI policy is stronger when people can meet face to face, ask better questions, and hear from communities beyond the usual expert panels.

Sessions are guided so people can ask hard questions, compare perspectives, and contribute in a setting built for care, respect, and practical follow-through.