Étienne Chénier-Laflèche is a PhD candidate at the École nationale d’administration publique (Québec) and the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (Lausanne). His research examines how the integration of artificial intelligence is reshaping public decision-making and the human responsibility that accompanies it. Working at the intersection of law and public administration, he focuses on managerial oversight of AI systems and the conditions to ensure their use aligns with the public interest, the rule of law, and human rights standards.
He holds an LL.M. from New York University (Fulbright Scholar) and two bachelor’s degrees, one in law and another in international relations and international law, from Université du Québec à Montréal. A member of the Quebec Bar, he served as a law clerk to Justice Richard Wagner at the Supreme Court of Canada.
Étienne is a human rights specialist who worked with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Haiti and the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Switzerland. He has collaborated with civil society organizations across Latin America and the Caribbean. He received the Young Bar of Montreal’s “Lawyer of the Year – Alternative Career” award for professional excellence and community engagement.
Governing Algorithms in the Public Interest: Which Knowledge and Skills are Required for Ethical and Effective Supervision of AI in Public Administration?
In March 2025, the Canadian government launched a strategy for the responsible, safe and accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the public sector. In doing so, it sought to harness the potential of AI while avoiding its pitfalls, such as opaque decisions and reproduction of biases. Several initiatives, including the adoption of the Directive on Automated Decision-Making and the signing of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, highlight the need for rigorous human oversight of AI.
This project will focus on the supervision of AI by public managers in human resources management. This field is strategic: AI tools automate or influence decisions that directly affect rights, careers and personnel management. However, barely any studies or clear definitions exist regarding the skills needed to exercise such control, thereby compromising their effectiveness.
The main objective of the project is to define what “supervising” AI means in practical terms and to evaluate this supervision in the administrative context. It will identify the knowledge, skills and organizational conditions required to ensure supervision in accordance with ethical, legal and technical standards. By focusing on how managers perceive and perform these functions, this project will contribute to understanding how human governance of AI can be maintained in the public sector. This topic touches upon a key democratic issue: how to ensure that the use of AI remains guided by public interest, rather than by an algorithmic logic that falls outside the requirements of the rule of law.
The expected impact is twofold. From a scientific point of view, the project will help conceptualize the notion of human supervision and identify the skills and knowledge required for its implementation. On a practical level, it will provide decision-makers with guidelines for developing responsible AI projects, strengthening the rule of law and promoting a digital transformation that respects public interest. It will also contribute uniquely to debates on the operationalization of ethical frameworks and the adoption of federal and provincial standards governing AI.
