# AI Ethical Futures Lab #8

October 6, 2026 · Parker Street Studios, Vancouver

## Edited transcript excerpts

Selected excerpts from the supplied machine transcript, lightly edited for punctuation and repetition. Speakers are unattributed; introductions, personal details and workplace anecdotes are omitted. These excerpts preserve questions and differing views, not agreed Lab positions. Timestamps refer to the source recording. This is not a complete or verbatim transcript.

### 00:18:20 · What can the Lab produce?

What does action look like? What can we produce? Can we produce guidelines, frameworks? We want to discuss that.

### 00:20:11 · Keeping the shared knowledge

We're talking about having a GitHub repo for this group, just as a good way to capture all the artifacts from every meeting. If we have side projects, I think it's a good way to have a place where we can capture our shared knowledge.

### 00:28:15 · Dialogue and taking positions

Do we want this to be a platform where we are facilitating dialogue, where there's people who have very different ethical positions, and the point of the group is to provide that forum, or do we want to actually take positions on some things?

### 00:30:42 · Making space for a response

If we allow people to express those views and then work collectively on a response, we may not satisfy everybody, but at least we're providing a place for dialogue and somewhere where we can provide frameworks.

### 00:33:51 · Taking concerns seriously

Any amount of change is going to impact humans at some level, and they're entitled to that reaction to those situations. If we can let that information come in, use it to help us figure out how do we respect those.

### 00:37:00 · Let people inspect the sources

I don't think we can be completely unbiased, as much as we want to be completely ethical. I think there's always going to be trade-offs. But if we can be as inclusive as possible and as wide-reaching as possible, like a clearinghouse, then at least people can see the original source information and make their own determination.

### 00:44:17 · A possible public record

If we do get some responses, I don't think we will. And if we don't get responses, we'll be able to at least publish the parts of the platform that mention AI, if there are any, and we can also then add a layer of fact checking if there are things that need to be verified.

### 00:54:37 · A map of the information

Essentially, a knowledge base and a map, like a quadrant or something like that. Some kind of orientation to understand where things stand with the requisite background knowledge that can be trusted. It comes from trusted sources, and that's another tool.

### 00:55:52 · Where would a citizen go?

Wouldn't it be great as a citizen who's trying to learn more about data centers to be able to go somewhere and be able to look at everything? That's really what people are looking for. I hear all this about data centers. I really want to understand what's at stake. But you don't know where to go. You don't have trust. You don't know what's what.

### 00:56:13 · Access is part of the responsibility

There's a spectrum of people when you think about citizens, and there's marginalized people, and there's languages. I think there's a huge responsibility there as well if you're a citizen advocacy group, making whatever you're making accessible to large numbers.

### 00:58:37 · Facts do not end the debate

There's facts, but then what do you do with those facts? You pull it up in schools, you can argue both ways in that case. Who am I or who are you to say what's right or wrong? Having a forum where collectively we come together and have a conversation on that.

### 01:05:19 · Casual use, consequential questions

Casual AI use and how it's crept its way into everyday life, in professional and personal life. I think that's another topic. We've got a list of topics.

### 01:08:47 · Disagreement can stay

Everybody's going to have a different point of view on that spectrum. But I think it's another good example of a topic that we should provide information about. I think we shouldn't lose the concept of this being a home for debate, where we don't agree with each other, but we can still work together.

### 01:11:48 · Who can act on a question?

Briefly about the idea of canvassing the municipal candidates as well. It's a bit unclear to me what the provincial and the municipal would have jurisdiction over. So, the question would be different.

### 01:16:20 · Checking claims about jobs

You hear a lot about these tech layoffs, and tech companies like to say, 'We're replacing all these workers with AI,' but some people are also skeptical about how much of that is actually true. Investigating when they say AI is replacing a worker, is it actually replacing them? What's actually going on inside?

### 01:17:16 · Start with the questions

One idea for a future lab would be to put together a taxonomy, an inventory of what the ethics questions are, without debating the questions themselves.

### 01:19:09 · Debates as source material

We can use the results of debate, the pros and cons, whatever else, as part of the clearinghouse information. We can't decide for you, but this is what somebody said in favor of this argument, and this is what somebody said against. Make up your own mind. Use the debates as another way to build the clearinghouse.

### 01:20:13 · Choosing what to take on

The hard part, where the discussion will be really valuable, is deciding which of these hundred things are the most relevant for this group in BC to raise.

### 01:24:25 · A manageable starting point

Let's make it three or four people. If there's a decision to be made, at the very minimum its main responsibility is just setting the agenda for the next meeting as a starting point. So let's start with that.

[Recap, photos and context](https://bc-ai.ca/events/2026-10-07-ai-ethical-futures-lab-8)