FSN Seminar – Sept 17

Time: Thursday September 17 2026 at 1 pm

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Presenter: Dr. Derek Ireland 

Title: Final AI Musings on Competition and Related Economic Complexities

Brief Bio: Derek is a local policy consultant, has had a long career in the Canadian public and private sectors, has received three university degrees in Asian Studies (BA), Economics (MA) and Public Policy (PhD), and his current research focuses on behavioral law and economics and public policy.  He has made many previous presentations to FSN on this topic over the past 15 years or so.   

Background to and Purpose of this PowerPoint Presentation (PPT): This PPT attempts to summarize, bring together, extend, and expand on the key issues, findings, and “musings” from: 

• his two “AI Musings” presentations to FSN on December 12 2024 and September 25 2025; 
• his three SSRN working papers (WPs) on AI Musings (May 2025), Further Musings (February 2026) and AI & Competition (July 2026) – with special emphasis on the third WP; 
• two presentations in April 2026 to the Competition and AI Course of the CUTS Institute for Regulation & Competition (CIRC) of India; and 
• the many excellent and highly provocative AI research studies and articles published over the past six months after his research for the last two WPs was largely completed — this has been a very interesting summer for AI (Derek apologizes for the long bibliography).  

This is Derek’s last “FSN will and testament” on AI Musings.  (I am doing a CLEA presentation on AI and Competition in October)

Special attention is given to the challenges posed by artificial intelligence for competition policy and law, other legal and regulatory regimes that influence competition, and AI governance.  The PPT is long probably too long (bad habit of yours truly); and will likely require nearly the full hour.  There is about 57 substantive slides, indicating about one minute each on average.  This is approximately ten more than the September 25 2025 presentation.  As before, I will only discuss the highlights on each page, particularly for slides 32 to 49 if we fall behind. And will note at times that I will be happy to send attendees a copy of the PPT.     

I would suggest accepting only brief questions and comments from attendees during the presentation, in order to discourage attendees from taking over the pulpit and providing long sermons on their own AI perspectives that are “off topic.”  My memory is that this has taken place at my previous AI presentations.  I will be pleased to stay after the hour for longer comments from and discussions with attendees.

Here are the slides:

Here is Derek’s short bio: