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In that context, our paper uses Canada as a critical case to investigate the relationship between ideals of good government and good technology. We do so through not one, but two Trudeaus\u2014celebrity Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2015\u2014\u2026) and his equally famous father, former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1968\u20131979, 1980\u20131984). Both shared a similar interest in new ideas and practices of both intelligent government and artificial intelligence. Influenced by Marshall McLuhan and his media theory, Pierre Elliott Trudeau deployed new communication technologies to restore centralized control in an otherwise decentralized state. Partly successful, he left his son with an informationally inclined political legacy, which decades later animated Justin Trudeau's own turn toward Big Data and artificial intelligence. Compared with one another, these two visions for both government and artificial intelligence illustrate the broader tensions between cybernetic and neoliberal approaches to government, which inform how new technologies are conceived of, and adopted, as political ones. As this article argues, Canada offers a paradigmatic case for how artificial intelligence is as much shaped by theories of government as by investments and innovations in computing research, which together delimit the contours of intelligence by defining which technical systems, people, and organizations come to be recognized as its privileged bearers. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/20539517221123304","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,6]],"date-time":"2022-10-06T06:03:15Z","timestamp":1665036195000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["States of computing: On government organization and artificial intelligence in Canada"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2464-8536","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Th\u00e9o","family":"Lepage-Richer","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Modern Culture and Media, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7584-1133","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Fenwick","family":"McKelvey","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University, Montr\u00e9al, Canada"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-20539517221123304","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/3336.001.0001"},{"volume-title":"Report of the Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting","year":"1929","author":"Aird J","key":"bibr2-20539517221123304"},{"key":"bibr3-20539517221123304","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/oso\/9780198814337.001.0001"},{"volume-title":"How to Run A Government So That Citizens Benefit and Taxpayers Don\u2019t Go Crazy","year":"2016","author":"Barber M","key":"bibr4-20539517221123304"},{"issue":"5","key":"bibr5-20539517221123304","first-page":"1","volume":"47","author":"Bareis J","year":"2021","journal-title":"Science, Technology, & Human Values"},{"key":"bibr6-20539517221123304","first-page":"1","volume-title":"Markets","author":"Beverungen A","year":"2019"},{"key":"bibr7-20539517221123304","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/1783.001.0001"},{"volume-title":"Artificial Intelligence Policy and Funding in Canada: Public Investments, Private Interests","year":"2021","author":"Brandusescu A","key":"bibr8-20539517221123304"},{"key":"bibr9-20539517221123304","first-page":"29","volume":"44","author":"Breton A","year":"1964","journal-title":"Canadian Forum"},{"key":"bibr10-20539517221123304","unstructured":"Brison S (2017) Launch of the Canadian Digital Service. 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