Montreal was the place where the Declaration for Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) was created. But like a badly shod cobbler, Montreal’s AI neglected to consider its negative impact on its adopted neighborhood, leading residents to demonstrate Thursday against what they see as a significant lack of respect for the most fragile. .
Tenants from the Parc-Extension district, the Parc-Extension anti-eviction mapping collective and the Parc-Extension action committee will hold, with rattles and other sound accessories in hand, a “tintamarre action” in the morning before the panel opening of the TimeWorld international conference which focuses on artificial intelligence and which takes place at the MIL Campus of the University of Montreal, located in the district.
Protesters blame corporations, universities and governments for creating the conditions that make this neighborhood increasingly unaffordable. They rely in particular on a report, published last month by university researchers, which details the harmful impact of the emergence of an artificial intelligence industry mainly concentrated in this quadrilateral located between Mont-Royal to the west, the metropolitan highway to the north, Villeray to the east and Outremont to the south.
The housing crisis that affects Parc-Extension is the same that affects other neighborhoods in Montreal and other cities throughout North America: real estate developers are evicting, renovating, and renting or reselling housing at a price far higher to what it was before they came. This creates a lack not only of affordable housing, but of social housing; a deficiency from which a neighborhood of immigrants like Parc-Extension particularly suffers, explains Communications professor at Concordia University Alessandra Renzi, co-author of the report entitled Digital Divides — The Impact of Montreal’s AI Ecosystems on Parc Extension: Housing, Environment and Access to Services.
“Many residents of the neighborhood are waiting for their visa to be able to work. These are women and men who cannot afford high-speed Internet, if only to take advantage of the innovation taking place in the neighbourhood,” laments Alessandra Renzi. The professor believes that the strategy of the Government of Quebec and the City of Montreal to invest massively in the development of AI in the metropolis is failing, by failing to help the poorest who are penalized for it. Companies headquartered in California or elsewhere on the planet are not going to solve the problem, adds the academic.
“Direct connection”
In their report, the authors are adamant: “There is a direct connection between AI innovation in Montreal and the housing crisis, which is exacerbated by AI companies, government-funded institutions like Scale AI, and the University of Montreal, whose presence in the neighborhood drives up rental prices and benefits the development of luxury real estate, while failing to deliver on its promise to make student housing more affordable,” it says. read.
Recalling the request made last March by the Office de consultation publique de Montréal, which requires nothing less than a “Marshall Plan” against the gentrification of Parc-Extension, the researchers believe that the authorities could stimulate with more the community involvement of the various actors involved in AI in Montreal.
These are women and men who cannot afford high-speed Internet, if only to take advantage of the innovation that is happening in the neighborhood.
We must recognize the limits of the AI ecosystem and provide equitable access to housing, businesses and employers and benefits for social groups that do not belong to the private sector, academia, business or government, they write, in concluding: “Rather than subsidizing only private initiatives, governments should encourage the creation of new community-based and community-managed projects […] so that the AI ecosystem benefits everyone, rather than perpetuating some harm. »