Ottawa puts $13 million into AI literacy

Across the country, countless people are slumped over their laptops or phones, reading an answer from a machine and trying to decide whether or not to believe it.

Ottawa is putting $13 million into free AI literacy training expected to reach up to one million post-secondary students and more than 50,000 K-12 educators, and it’s handing Edmonton’s Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) the job to deliver it.

Evan Solomon, Canada’s minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, launched the National AI Literacy Initiative in Edmonton on Sept. 9.

The courses are designed to teach people to assess AI-generated information, recognize bias, misinformation, and privacy risks, while also deciding when to use the technology.

Amii will run the training through three streams:

• Essentials for students. A free three-hour course, in English and French, that colleges and universities can build into their own coursework. Schools can sign on starting Sept. 21.
• Essentials for educators. Classroom-ready training for K-12 teachers that covers the technical basics along with ethics, safety, and governance. The first chapter will be available Sept. 21, with five more due in the fall.
• Essentials for Canadians, launching later this year. Community organizations in urban, rural, and remote communities will begin offering the course and providing feedback as Amii works toward direct public access.

“Now we are making sure Canadians have the knowledge and confidence to shape what comes next,” says Solomon. “AI literacy gives people the practical skills to benefit from these technologies, understand their risks and decide where AI belongs in their lives.”

A future hire could arrive having taken one of these courses. Their teacher may have taken one, too. 

Whether the training makes either of them better at questioning an overly confident string of zeroes and ones predicting what comes next is the part Ottawa still has to prove.

There’s also training for people already working. 

Workers and employers can also use Employment and Social Development Canada’s Training Finder on Job Bank to search short AI courses offered by colleges, universities, and other training providers. The directory sits outside the Amii rollout.

One of Canada’s three national AI institutes, alongside Mila in Montreal and the Vector Institute in Toronto, Amii will lead delivery of the courses. They already offer training alongside their research work. 

Amii also received $50 million from Alberta in July to support startups, AI adoption in industry and public services, and workforce training.

Amii CEO Cam Linke calls the national mandate “a profound validation” of the institute’s AI literacy work. He says the courses will help “demystify technology” for Canadians.

The initiative falls under Canada’s national AI for All strategy, released in June. 

AI literacy is the latest addition to Ottawa’s growing AI spending, alongside sovereign compute, a national health data network, and regional adoption grants.

Reaching up to one million post-secondary students will depend on institutions joining the consortium and offering the course.

Final shots

• The student course lasts three hours, so employers will still need to determine whether new hires can assess AI output in practice.
• Bias, misinformation, and privacy loss give employers a concrete checklist for reviewing their own AI training.
• Ottawa has set reach targets, but the announcement doesn’t say how it will measure what participants learn or whether their behaviour changes.