​Every AI conversation you've ever been in probably sounded like one of two camps. "AI is the greatest thing ever. It has the potential to revolutionize the world. Get on board!" OR "AI is stealing our work/jobs/autonomy. We should resist."

​Here's the thing: both positions are lazy. Both avoid the harder work of holding nuance, complexity, contradiction, and competing values. The big platforms are strip-mining everything we create. They want our data to feed their machines. But those same tools are also transforming what's possible - for creativity, for learning, for building things we couldn't build before.

​We walk forward holding both.

​The BC-AI Ethical Futures Lab exists because we need spaces where we can be critical and engaged at the same time. Where we don't pretend those fears don't exist, and we don't pretend the possibilities aren't real.

​What We're Building

​What We're Building

​The AI Ethical Futures Lab is a community-driven initiative within the BC + AI Ecosystem, dedicated to fostering responsible AI development through collaborative research, policy engagement, ethical framework development, and, above all, open discourse.

​We bridge the gap between AI innovation and ethical consideration, ensuring British Columbia leads in building trustworthy, inclusive, and community-centered AI systems.

​Our approach

​Community-First Ethics: Ethical AI emerges from diverse voices, not corporate boardrooms. We out Indigenous knowledge systems, grassroots perspectives, and lived experiences front and centre.

​Our policy-meets-practice philosophy translates ethical frameworks into actionable guidelines for developers, policymakers, and organizations implementing AI systems.

​We champion open processes, clear accountability mechanisms, and inclusive decision-making from design to governance with human-welbeing the perpetual North Star.

​Meetup Zero: The Invitation

​The BC + AI Ethical Futures Lab WhatsApp channel has been active since January 9, 2026.

​In 12 days, we've had: 222 messages exchanged between 29 participants from wildly varying experiences, backgrounds, and vocations.

​Key voices include ethics experts, governance professionals, nonprofit leaders, and technologists all interested in constructive, community-based conversations about the future trajectory of AI. These are deep discussions on real topics like ethics frameworks, value neutrality, human dignity, execution-time governance, consent, and intellectual prperty law.

​This is Meetup Zero... the first informal, in-person gathering of people building the AI Ethical Futures Lab. We're not launching a program. We're not presenting a framework. We're gathering the people who care about this work and want to meet face-to-face.