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Helpful Places

Government of Canada – DTPR AI Register

AI Conversational Assistant for Artistic Projects

Arts & Culture

What it collects that can identify you

About behaviour
Pseudonymous data
  • User conversational inputs — text queries, responses, and choices made during interaction with the AI — are processed by the system. These represent records of what users say and do during the artistic project experience.
Biometric
Pseudonymous data
  • The AI Transcription Instance Software (via Descript) processes spoken audio from users. Voice recordings are transcribed as part of the artistic project workflow.
Run by
National Film Board (NFB)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization, Vendor

What it is for

Arts & Culture

The National Film Board of Canada uses machine learning to power conversational experiences in artistic projects. The system enables interactions between users and an AI in three distinct applications: a programming assistant, an AI learning instance, and an AI transcription tool. Members of the public and NFB employees may interact with these systems as part of creative or artistic works. Users should know their conversational interactions are processed by AI and may involve vendors including Microsoft Azure and Descript.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About behaviour
Pseudonymous data
  • User conversational inputs — text queries, responses, and choices made during interaction with the AI — are processed by the system. These represent records of what users say and do during the artistic project experience.
Biometric
Pseudonymous data
  • The AI Transcription Instance Software (via Descript) processes spoken audio from users. Voice recordings are transcribed as part of the artistic project workflow.

Processing

Language Models
  • The system uses machine learning processes (AAPs — machine learning processes as described in the register) via Microsoft Azure to conduct conversations with users. These are language model-based systems that interpret user input and produce conversational responses.
Speech & Audio
  • The AI Transcription Instance Software component uses speech-to-text processing (Descript) to convert spoken audio to text as part of the artistic project workflow.

What it does

Understanding (Semantic AI)
Human decides
  • The system uses machine learning to understand user inputs and generate conversational responses in the context of artistic projects. Users interact with the AI and the AI provides contextually relevant dialogue, with human participants deciding how the conversation proceeds.
Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • The AI conversational instances generate text responses as part of the user-machine dialogue in artistic projects. The programming work instance and AI learning instance both produce generated conversational content in response to user input.
Sensing (Perceptive AI)
Human decides
  • The AI Transcription Instance Software uses machine learning to perceive and convert spoken audio to structured text. Descript is used as a vendor for this transcription capability.

Outputs

Generated content
Anonymized data
  • The AI system produces generated conversational text as output — dialogue and responses created by the machine learning model in response to user inputs during the artistic project experience.
About behaviour
Pseudonymous data
  • For the transcription instance, the system produces a record of what users said — a transcript of their spoken interaction as part of the artistic project.

Run by

National Film Board (NFB)
  • The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) deploys and operates the Conversational AI system as part of artistic and creative projects available to both employees and the public.

Government of Canada AI Register — Conversational AI (2526-NFB-ONF-002)

Built by

Microsoft Azure / Descript
  • Microsoft Azure and Descript are the technology vendors providing the underlying AI platform and transcription services used in the Conversational AI system.

Government of Canada AI Register — Conversational AI (2526-NFB-ONF-002)

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • Conversational data and transcriptions produced by the system are available to the National Film Board of Canada as the accountable deploying organization.
Available to vendor
  • Conversational and audio data processed through Microsoft Azure and Descript may be accessible to those vendors as part of the service delivery. The extent of vendor data access is not specified in the register entry.

Stored

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data
Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data
Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data
The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides
This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes
This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous
This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the Helpful Places, not the vendor.

Your rights

  • Right to Be Informed of AI UseUsers have the right to be informed that they are interacting with an AI system and not a human. The system is deployed as part of artistic projects by the National Film Board of Canada. Contact the NFB for further information about AI use in specific projects.
  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyUsers have the right to understand in plain language how the AI system works. The NFB uses machine learning processes (AAPs) via Microsoft Azure and Descript to create conversational interactions in artistic projects. Details about the specific models used are not publicly disclosed in the register entry. Contact the National Film Board of Canada for further information.

Risks and safeguards

  • Psychological harmUsers interacting with AI-driven conversations in artistic contexts may not clearly perceive the boundary between human and machine interaction, potentially causing disorientation or distress.Safeguard: The system is deployed within explicitly framed artistic projects; users engage in the context of a creative work, providing an artistic frame that contextualizes AI involvement. No specific technical mitigations are described in the register entry.