On March 13, 2016, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, the Go champion Lee Sedol placed a white stone that commentators called a brilliant tesuji. Move 78 of the fourth game turned the game around, and the Chinese professional Gu Li called it a "divine move." It was the only game Lee won. Over five games between March 9 and 15, DeepMind's program AlphaGo beat him four to one, every game ending in resignation. In October 2015 the same program had beaten the European champion Fan Hui five games to none, the first time an AI had beaten a human professional on a full-sized board without a handicap.
The match had a large audience, around 60 million viewers for the first game on Chinese-language coverage alone, and it arrived in the middle of an argument that had been building for two years. That argument, over whether artificial intelligence is a threat to humans and what governments should do about it, has since moved from physicists and entrepreneurs to Parliament in Ottawa, the provincial education ministry in Victoria and the academic offices of Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo.
Hawking, Musk and the 2014 warning
The phrase that defined the early debate came from Stephen Hawking. In a BBC interview published on December 2, 2014, he said: "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." His worry was speed. A machine that could match human intelligence "would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," he said, and "humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."
The occasion was mundane. Hawking, who had ALS, was talking about a new speech system built by Intel, with predictive text from the British company SwiftKey that learned how he thought and suggested his next words. A basic form of the technology he was warning about was already helping him speak.
The same BBC report quoted Elon Musk calling AI "our biggest existential threat," and gave space to a more relaxed view from Rollo Carpenter, creator of the chatbot Cleverbot. "I believe we will remain in charge of the technology for a decently long time and the potential of it to solve many of the world problems will be realised," Carpenter said. He did think full AI might come within a few decades, and admitted that nobody could know whether such a machine would help humanity, ignore it, "or conceivably destroy" it. The report also flagged a nearer concern: machines that could take over human tasks and destroy millions of jobs.
Seoul, 2016: the move nobody expected
The second game had already produced the move that unsettled the professionals watching. AlphaGo's move 37 struck the professional commentator Michael Redmond as "creative" and "unique," a play most human professionals would not have considered.
The prize of $1 million went to charities, among them UNICEF and Go organisations, after AlphaGo won. Lee received $170,000 for taking part and winning a game. The longer cost was to his sense of the game. On November 19, 2019, he announced his retirement, saying he could never be the top player because of AI's increasing dominance and describing it as "an entity that cannot be defeated."
Nothing about Go threatened anyone's safety. What the match showed was a program finding moves that strong human players had not considered, in a narrow game, which is a small version of the ability Hawking had worried about in general form. The Korea Baduk Association afterwards awarded AlphaGo an honorary 9-dan rank, its highest grandmaster grade.
The 2023 letters and the people who signed them
The next wave came after generative AI reached the public. In March 2023, about a week after OpenAI released GPT-4, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter calling on "all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4," along with more regulation, independent audits and public money for safety research. It gathered more than 30,000 signatures, among them Yoshua Bengio, Stuart Russell, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and Yuval Noah Harari.
On May 30, 2023, the Center for AI Safety released a single sentence: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war." Three of the signers named on its page were working in Canada: Geoffrey Hinton, emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Toronto; Yoshua Bengio of the Université de Montréal and the Mila institute; and Gillian Hadfield, a CIFAR AI Chair at the University of Toronto and the Vector Institute. The heads of OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic signed too.
The letters had sharp critics. Timnit Gebru and others called the pause letter sensationalist and said it amplified speculative scenarios at the expense of present harms such as algorithmic bias. Bill Gates declined to sign, saying that asking one group to pause does not "solve the challenges," and OpenAI's Sam Altman said the letter was "missing most technical nuance." Some skeptics of the extinction statement pointed out that its signers were still funding the research they warned about. Eliezer Yudkowsky came at it from the other side, arguing the pause letter "doesn't go far enough."
Hinton made the most personal move. He resigned from Google in 2023, citing concerns that "bad actors" would use the technology to harm others. When he shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Hopfield, announced on October 8, 2024, he used the attention to repeat the warning. "Quite a few good researchers believe that sometime in the next 20 years, AI will become more intelligent than us, and we need to think hard about what happens then," he said. "If you look around, there are very few examples of more intelligent things being controlled by less intelligent things."
Ottawa's answer: an institute, a dead bill and a strategy
Canada's first institutional response was a research body rather than a law. On November 12, 2024, in Montréal, Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne launched the Canadian Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute, with an initial $50 million over five years drawn from a $2.4 billion AI package in Budget 2024. Its work runs through two channels: investigator-led research funded through CIFAR, and government-directed projects, such as cybersecurity work, carried out by the National Research Council. Bengio called its creation "an important step in this direction."
The law that was supposed to sit beside it never arrived. The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act was part of Bill C-27, which would also have replaced the federal private-sector privacy law. When Parliament was prorogued on January 6, 2025, every bill still in progress died, C-27 among them. The act was never enacted and its regulations were never published, the law firm DLA Piper noted two days later.
By mid-2026 the federal approach had changed shape. On June 2, 2026, Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon told reporters the coming strategy would be "lots on trust, lots on empowering workers, lots on building Canada," and promised legislation "protecting children first and foremost" along with Canadians' privacy and data. The strategy, AI for All, was released on June 4, 2026. According to a summary by Baker McKenzie, it sets out six pillars and plans no single comprehensive AI law. It proposes targeted legislation on deepfakes, surveillance pricing and online safety for social media and chatbot users, watermarking of AI-generated content, a Canadian Trusted AI Certification and $50 million for the safety institute to evaluate AI models. As of the June 2 report, it was not yet clear when the privacy and online harms bills would be introduced.
In Nanaimo classrooms and lecture halls
For most people on Vancouver Island, the question arrives at school, not in Parliament. The B.C. Ministry of Education's guidance for K-12 schools, last updated on July 18, 2024, says ethical, responsible and safe use of AI "requires a human-centered approach that prioritizes meaningful learning experiences," and treats AI as a supplement to human teaching, not a replacement. The ministry offers districts a set of considerations, a glossary of AI terms, parent guides and classroom posters, and leaves the final call to teachers, who decide based on their students' needs. Districts, including School District 68 in Nanaimo and Ladysmith, use those materials to build their own procedures. If you have a child in a local school, the teacher's course outline is where that decision shows up.
Vancouver Island University set out its position in a statement dated November 27, 2023. It calls generative AI a tool that "can be useful in learning and teaching at VIU and beyond, provided it is used appropriately within the context of individual courses and assignments," and leaves it to faculty to decide whether, and how far, to allow it. The privacy rules are the most specific part. Instructors who want students to use a third-party AI tool must consult the university's Privacy Office about whether a privacy impact assessment is needed under B.C.'s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, must tell students what data the tool collects and how it is used, and must offer an equivalent assignment to anyone who opts out. Misuse falls under the existing academic integrity policy, numbered 96.01. The university's graduate studies office adds guidance drawn from a working group of western Canadian graduate deans.
Neither document mentions extinction. The risks they deal with are a student's personal data going to a third-party tool and an assignment the student did not do. Other council and school decisions are collected under Civic Nanaimo.
VIU's statement promises to keep reviewing developments, including "emerging government legislation." Nearly three years and one dead federal bill later, the federal answer, as of June 2026, was a strategy and a promise of targeted bills rather than an AI act, and in Nanaimo the decision is still made one course outline at a time.
Questions
Who won the AlphaGo match against Lee Sedol?
AlphaGo, the Go program from Google's DeepMind, won four games to one in Seoul between March 9 and 15, 2016. Lee won only the fourth game, with a move commentators praised as brilliant.
What did Stephen Hawking say about artificial intelligence?
In a December 2014 BBC interview, Hawking said that the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. He argued that a machine able to redesign itself would outpace humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution.
What was the 2023 Statement on AI Risk?
It was a one-sentence statement released by the Center for AI Safety on May 30, 2023. It said that mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside pandemics and nuclear war, and its signers included Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio.
Does Canada have a law regulating artificial intelligence?
Not a general one. The proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act was part of Bill C-27, which died when Parliament was prorogued on January 6, 2025. The federal AI for All strategy of June 2026 favours targeted laws on issues such as deepfakes and online safety over one comprehensive AI act.
What is the Canadian AI Safety Institute?
It is a federal institute launched in Montréal on November 12, 2024, with an initial budget of $50 million over five years. It funds research through CIFAR, runs government-directed projects through the National Research Council, and works with safety institutes in other countries.
Why did Geoffrey Hinton leave Google?
Hinton resigned from Google in 2023, citing concerns that bad actors would use the technology to harm others. After sharing the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, he repeated calls for companies to put more research into AI safety.
Can students in Nanaimo schools use AI tools?
It depends on the teacher and the district. The B.C. Ministry of Education's guidance says choices about AI in the classroom are ultimately made by teachers based on their students' needs, while districts set local procedures and policies.
Does Vancouver Island University allow generative AI?
VIU's 2023 statement treats generative AI as a tool that can be useful when used appropriately within a course. Faculty decide whether and how far to allow it, and inappropriate use is handled under the university's academic integrity policy.
Did Lee Sedol keep playing after losing to AlphaGo?
He played on for a few more years and announced his retirement on November 19, 2019. He said he could never again be the top player because of AI, which he described as an entity that cannot be defeated.
Who criticized the warnings about AI extinction risk?
Computer scientist Timnit Gebru was among the most prominent critics, arguing that the 2023 letters played up speculative scenarios instead of present problems such as algorithmic bias. Bill Gates declined to sign the pause letter, saying a pause by one group would not solve the challenges.
Sources
- AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol, Wikipedia
- Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind, BBC News, 2014-12-02
- Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter, Wikipedia
- Statement on AI Risk, Center for AI Safety, 2023-05-30
- Statement on AI Risk, Wikipedia
- Geoffrey Hinton warns of AI's growing danger after Nobel Prize win, The Irish News (PA Media), 2024-10-09
- Canada launches Canadian Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 2024-11-12
- Canadian privacy and AI horizon shifts again, DLA Piper, 2025-01-08
- Federal government's new AI strategy will emphasize trust, minister says, BNN Bloomberg (The Canadian Press), 2026-06-02
- Canada: Federal government releases refreshed national AI strategy, Baker McKenzie, 2026-06
- Digital literacy and the use of AI in education: supports for British Columbia schools, Province of British Columbia, 2024-07-18
- Academic Integrity and Generative Artificial Intelligence: Context, Considerations, Emerging Best Practices, Vancouver Island University, 2023-11-27
- Use of AI in Graduate Studies, Vancouver Island University
