KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has called on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment to act swift­ly on ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence leg­is­la­tion, say­ing it has a rare op­por­tu­ni­ty to lead the re­gion on proac­tive tech­nol­o­gy reg­u­la­tion.

Ad­dress­ing to­day’s cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment, Kan­ga­loo wel­comed the new gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to es­tab­lish a Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence but warned this should be fol­lowed by laws to pre­vent fu­ture harm.

She told MPs that while AI held vast po­ten­tial, with­out ear­ly leg­isla­tive safe­guards, it al­so risked deep­en­ing in­equal­i­ty, dis­plac­ing work­ers, and con­cen­trat­ing eco­nom­ic pow­er.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo drew a com­par­i­son to the coun­try’s de­layed re­sponse to harms from so­cial me­dia, in­clud­ing the non-con­sen­su­al cir­cu­la­tion of in­ti­mate im­ages.

She said reg­u­la­tion on­ly fol­lowed af­ter “un­speak­able hurt” was in­flict­ed—most­ly on women—and urged Par­lia­ment not to re­peat this fail­ure with AI.