Black Futures by Design. Advancing Racial Justice in Canada’s AI Governance.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is neither neutral nor purely technical. It is a socio-legal construct that reflects and reinforces the power structures within which it is developed. As critical scholarship continues to demonstrate, AI systems have inherited and amplified historical inequities, particularly racial biases embedded in data, design, and deployment processes. Even in the Canadian context, the systemic marginalization of Black communities across sectors such as criminal justice, employment, and financial services is increasingly reproduced through algorithmic technologies that lack transparency, accountability, and community oversight.