Genius Hour Project - Week 4!

Thank you for joining me on my Genius Hour journey for week 4.  This week, I focused on continuing my research on AI regulations at the federal level, and how the future of AI is being guided.  I also took the time to create my teacher interview questions in preparation for next week.  I found this week's deep dive to be incredibly interesting, and I think you will enjoy learning about the information I was able to gather during my research.

I started my research with the Government of Canada, looking into the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) (Government of Canada 2025). As of today, the government does not have a formal set of regulations around AI and its use.  However, they have created this framework as part of Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022 (Government of Canada 2025). The framework outlines how the government intends to work through a public discussion and assessment phase before bringing in legislation.  They had anticipated this taking three years, but as of 2026, the process is still ongoing. They provided an interesting statistic, in that "nearly two-thirds of respondents believed that AI has the potential to cause harm to society, while 71% believed that it could be trusted if regulated by public authorities." (Government of Canada 2025). Per this report, Canada was the first country globally to launch a national strategy for AI in 2017 (Government of Canada 2025). Worldwide revenues from the Artificial Intelligence market have surpassed $680 billion in 2023, with market research expected to grow to over $2 trillion dollars by 2030 (Government of Canada 2025).

The report suggests that while AI has the potential to improve lives, there are also significant pitfalls that we must be aware of as a society so that we can mitigate or limit the potential harms of these systems (Government of Canada 2025):

• "A resume screening AI system used by a large multinational company to shortlist candidates for interviews was found to discriminate against women."
• "An analysis of well-known facial recognition systems showed evidence of bias against women and people of color."
• "AI systems have been used to create "deepfake" images, audio, and video that can cause harm to individuals."

While existing consumer protection regulators are taking steps to address impacts of AI within their authorities, the Government recognizes that regulatory gaps are forming that must be filled (Government of Canada 2025):

• "Mechanisms such as human rights commissions provide for redress in cases of discrimination, however individuals subject to AI bias may never be aware that it has occurred;"
• "Given the wide range of uses of AI systems throughout the economy, many sensitive use cases do not fall under existing sectoral regulators; and"
• "There is a need for minimum standards as well as greater coordination and expertise to ensure consistent protections for Canadians across use contexts."

Also, AIDA created three new criminal offences tied to AI (Government of Canada 2025):

• "Knowingly possessing or using unlawfully obtained personal information to design, develop, use or make available for use an AI system. This could include knowingly using personal information obtained from a data breach to train an AI system."
• "Making an AI system available for use, knowing, or being reckless as to whether, it is likely to cause serious harm or substantial damage to property, where its use actually causes such harm or damage."
• "Making an AI system available for use with intent to defraud the public and to cause substantial economic loss to an individual, where its use actually causes that loss"

I then took a look at the report "Preparing for the AI Crisis: A Plan for Canada" from Artificial Intelligence Governance & Safety Canada (AIGS) (2025). The report showed a dire need for appropriate regulation to be implemented quickly in order to get ahead of the ongoing and increasing societal risks that AI present.  Below is a graph that they shared which details the incremental rise in AI capabilities, against a timeline of when we can expect them to occur and the societal impacts that need to be addressed (AIGS 2025).  They are suggesting a massive disruption to occur within the next 5 years based on the advent of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the subsequent development of Artificial Superintelligent systems (ASI) (AIGS 2025).

AIGS 2025

They also predict that there will be multiple concurrent crises that our governments will need to deal with as AI capabilities improve dramatically in such a short period of time (AIGS 2025):

AIGS 2025

So, what can we do today to help mitigate this personally?  One thing that AI systems creators and users of AI tools can do is ensure that the use of AI includes the concept of 'Human in the loop" (Doubleword 2025).  This is a concept that ensure a human is validating the inputs and outputs of an AI system, ensuring that there are ethical, reasonable and responsible concepts applied to the use of the AI tools.  Below is an image that encapsulates this workflow"

Doubleword 2025

Finally this week, I wanted to finalize my interview questions that I will against 3 - 5 secondary school teachers and an administrator (Principal or Vice Principal). Below are the questions I came up with:

Part 1: Quantitative Data

Rating scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 5 = Strongly Agree)

1. Familiarity: I feel confident in my understanding of how Generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) works.
2. Productivity: I believe AI can significantly reduce my administrative workload (lesson planning, emails, rubrics).
3. Ethics/Privacy: I am concerned about the ethical implications of using AI in my professional practice (e.g., student data privacy).
4. Policy: I feel my school/board has provided clear guidelines on the ethical use of AI.

Part 2: Qualitative Questions

For Teachers:

1. Can you describe one specific task where AI has improved your productivity? How did it change your workflow?
2. Where do you draw the professional line? Is there a specific part of your job you feel should never be touched by AI to remain ethical?
3. When you use these tools, what steps do you take to ensure you aren't violating student privacy or board "Acceptable Use" policies?

For Administrators (Principals / Vice Principals):

1. How do you see AI changing the "Standard of Practice" for teachers in the next 3 years?
2. What is the biggest ethical "red flag" you've encountered or worry about regarding staff use of AI?
3. How are you supporting staff in navigating the "gray area" between innovation and professional misconduct?

References

Government of Canada. The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) – Companion Document, Government of Canada, 10 Dec. 2025, ised-isde.canada.ca/site/innovation-better-canada/en/artificial-intelligence-and-data-act-aida-companion-document#s10.

L’Allie, Wyatt Tessari. “Preparing for the AI Crisis: A Plan for Canada.” Artificial Intelligence Governance & Safety Canada (AIGS), Oct. 2025.

“Human in the Loop.” Doubleword, Doubleword, 2025, www.doubleword.ai/glossary/human-in-the-loop.

Gemini. Create an image that encapsulates this blog entry... Google Gemini, 1 Feb. 2026. Google. https://gemini.google.com/