The Attention Conference in Montreal

Last week Montreal hosted the Attention Conference — a remarkable gathering of researchers, policymakers, and civil society leaders all working on different dimensions of digital governance. It was organized by Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy and brought together some of the sharpest thinkers on platform regulation, AI governance, and information integrity from around the world.

A few things stayed with me. The gap between what researchers know about the harms of algorithmic systems and what regulators have the capacity to act on is widening, not narrowing. The international coordination that seemed possible a few years ago is fracturing under geopolitical pressure. And yet the people in that room — from a dozen countries — are doing some of the most important policy work of our time.

Montreal is becoming a real hub for this kind of work. That's something worth building on.