SECTOR: SPRING 2024 // Canadian Government Executive / 7 INTERVIEW LORI: I’d like to introduce our first speaker. Christina Montgomery is Vice President and Chief Privacy and Trust Officer at IBM. Christina is overseeing the company’s privacy program, compliance, and strategy on a global basis and directing all aspects of IBM’s privacy policies. She also chairs IBM’s AI Ethics Board. During her tenure at IBM, Christina has served in a variety of positions, including Managing Attorney, Cybersecurity Counsel, and most recently, Corporate Secretary to the company’s Board of Directors. A global leader in AI ethics and governance, Christina is a member of the US Chamber of Commerce AI Commission and a member of the United States National AI Advisory Committee. This was established in 2022 to advise the President and the National AI Initiative Office on a range of topics related to AI. Christina is also an advisory board member of the Future of Privacy Forum, advisory council member of the Center for Information Policy Leadership, and a member of the AI Governance Advisory Board for the International Association of Privacy Professionals. She received a BA from Binghamton University and a JD from Harvard Law School. Welcome, Christina. Thank you so much for being here. CHRISTINA: Thank you Lori for giving me the opportunity to open today’s summit. We’re here today to talk about digital transformation. It’s a fitting theme as we approach one year since the launch of ChatGPT, a moment which truly ignited awareness and adoption of AI worldwide. But these types of flashy consumer use cases are not where the real transformational powers lie. Foundation models are set to radically and quickly change how businesses operate. And as consumers and citizens increasingly test and trial AI, leaders in Canada are deepening their understanding of AI’s potential and where the most value can be derived. In an IBM study released earlier this year, 78% of Canadian CEOs said they had a clear plan for the role advanced AI will play in their organization’s decision-making five years from now. And at the same time, the dramatic surge in public attention around AI has rightfully raised questions. And they’re questions that are critically important, like what is the potential impact on society and the workforce? What do we do about challenges with AI around bias and explainability? What about misinformation and harmful and abusive content that can be generated by AI systems that are misused? So just as this last year ushered in the meteoric rise of capabilities like ChatGPT and other generative AI models, it also brought forth a variety of policy recommendations around AI from around the globe. These are important conversations to be having right now. Leaders across the U.S. and Canada and around the world are steeped in discussions on how to significantly increase productivity and competitiveness to kickstart a new wave of economic growth. Most of us in this room have likely heard economic figures and projections tied to AI adoption. The CEO of IBM, Arvind Krishna, has said AI could add $10 trillion to global GDP by 2030. And in Canada, experts have predicted that AI could increase the nation’s economy by $210 billion and potentially save the average Canadian worker 100 hours a year. AI innovation is absolutely transforming businesses and industries, including in the public sector. But it presents new and creative ways to think about how we might transform governments to modernize digital services, make departments more effective, and enhance services for our constituents. However, like any technology going through rapid development, AI could also be hazardous. And today there aren’t enough
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