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Governing AI: why the public must set the moral limits

Published: 19 June 2026

Who should decide what artificial intelligence is allowed to do to us?

Increasingly, choices about fairness, risk, and harm are made not by the public, but by the companies building these systems. Even industry leaders admit this is a problem.

Emmanuelle Vaast, professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management at 91 puts it, “When corporations alone decide how AI shapes our lives, we risk outsourcing our moral responsibility.”

Internal safeguards often lack independence, and public consultation can be largely symbolic. Like drugs or nuclear power, AI needs oversight with real authority—through independent regulators, citizens’ assemblies, and enforceable rules shaped by the public whose lives these systems ultimately affect. 


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