this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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Say Hi to Tech Bro Carney | The Tyee (thetyee.ca)
submitted 4 days ago by patatas@sh.itjust.works to c/canada@lemmy.ca
30 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

In August, Solomon announced the government had signed an agreement with Cohere to identify where “AI tools can improve public services.”

Cohere’s reported connection to the U.S. AI firm Palantir increases the alarm. Led by MAGA funder Peter Thiel, Palantir sees the Canadian company’s models being deployed to Palantir customers, possibly including U.S. defence and intelligence agencies.

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[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I don't see a single representative there from the arts community, the labour movement ... almost entirely industry folks.

Last I heard, there were 7500+ responses to the AI consultation survey - I filled it out, but almost every one of the roughly two dozen long-form questions was geared toward industry, and the bulk of my responses began with questioning the premise of what was being asked. None of this has been about fact-finding, it's about clearing a path to pouring billions of public dollars into an industry whose most apparent use case is surveillance.

[–] AGM@lemmy.ca 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

No representation from labour? Did you miss the Senior Research Officer from CUPE?

Also, there is the Founding Director of the Center for Media, Technology and Democracy.

Your critique isn't totally unfair, but there is a lot of academia on the panel. It's not just industry, but it's not a group representative of all sectors that stand to be affected. There are definitely people I would also like to see on there who aren't part of it, especially on education. It's a task force and an initiative that is aligned with an already determined strategic mandate to achieve AI sovereignty, and to shape whatever that ultimately means. It is taking for granted that AI is going to be part of Canada's future in a big way. It is approached like a response to an arms race and how to keep up as best we can, not a fact finding mission. I don't think that's entirely unreasonable, as long as we have accountability on legislation that shapes what actually goes from strategy into budget and implementation, also via things like the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act that addresses the governance side. This group isn't governance, but strategy.

I also disagree the only use case is surveillance. That's also fear mongering, but it is definitely one of the concerning use cases. There are many concerning use cases. This is where we need other civil society pressure and accountability in parliament and the governance side to provide oversight and regulation.

It's not perfect, but it's not as terrifying as the Tyee article makes it out.

[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Fair enough, I guess I missed the lone labour rep in between all the folks from Cohere.

[–] AGM@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There's like one person from Cohere.

[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works -2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Was rhetorical, but sure OK, let's do this:

  • one person (the CEO!) from Cohere;
  • two people from Creative Destruction Labs;
  • one person (the CEO!) from CoLab software;
  • a VP from Moov.AI;
  • the chair of Build Canada, which is basically advocating for a Canadian version of DOGE policy;
  • executive chair of Coveo, a SaaS firm;
  • a partner from VC firm Inovia Capital;
  • president of the Council of Canadian Innovators, basically an industry lobbyist;
  • someone from RBC;
  • CTO of VDURA, a US software company;
  • CEO of Aptum, a US-owned service provider to data centers;
  • CEO of Digital Moment, a "charity" that pushes tech into education systems;
  • CEO of samdesk, an AI-powered surveillance company.

Edit: not to mention that pretty much every academic on there has a vested interest in getting public funding for their work.

[–] AGM@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

You've listed 13 that are on the industry side, including one who bridges academia and commercialization. There's 11-12 who fall across civil society, academia and research. That doesn't seem wildly unbalanced to me, but nobody is saying it's perfect so feel free to suggest how you think it would be better structured and what categories you would look to form it around.

[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

As I also alluded to in my edit, most of the "academics" are people developing AI, rather than analysing it from different perspectives.

Philosophers of technology and/or science, academics in the humanities such as philosophers, or people who work in the theory of education, labour economists, civil rights groups and others working on understanding systemic oppression and bias, authors and musicians, to name a few of the types of folks who should be in the room when our government attempts to remake society in the tech-bro image.

Edit: also, like, saying "only half of this team are part of the industry that this panel is supposed to create a regulatory framework for" is kinda wild to me. Especially given how disruptive folks like Carney & Solomon claim this tech is. You'd think we would want like 90% advocacy and civil society groups discussing the complete upheaval of our social systems rather than literally half the people being the dead-eyed freaks trying to make billions for themselves before the planet burns to a crisp

[–] AGM@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

we would want like 90% advocacy and civil society groups

If Canada had a national strategy group on achieving leadership in the arts, would you say 90% of members must be from outside the arts and not even experts on the arts who receive any public funding? What would that actually achieve?

This is a strategy group on making plans for how to achieve Canadian leadership in AI. The whole purpose of it is to provide an urgent response to a lack of industrial strategy in a rapidly growing and emerging space of critical importance. They have an objective to provide an industrial strategy document. If you don’t have voices at the table who are engaged in industry, there will be no point in even forming a group because it will never achieve the goal. Nonetheless, it still has substantial civil society representation and open consultation. You didn’t like the questions in the survey? They provided an email address to receive open-ended responses where you could send whatever feedback you wanted.

Also, government is not just one group.

For long-term AI guidance with annual reports, the government also has the Advisory Council on AI. It has a mandate to ensure AI development in alignment with Canadian values. Its mandate was also expanded this year. https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/advisory-council-artificial-intelligence/en

And, there is the Safe and Secure AI Advisory Group that is focused on guiding policy wrt risks from AI. https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/advisory-council-artificial-intelligence/en/safe-and-secure-ai-advisory-group

Still, none of these are passing legislation or allocating funds.

Government is not a monolith, and Canada is taking a layered approach to AI strategy, one layer of which is industrial policy. And, if Canadians don’t like the strategic guidance produced by any of these groups, they can pressure their representatives to shape the actual legislation around them.

Out of curiosity, what is the actual grounding of your beliefs about AI and AI policy? There is plenty to be concerned about, but your responses are also full of hyperbole. What are you basing them on?

[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If Canada had a national strategy group on achieving leadership in the arts, would you say 90% of members must be from outside the arts

First off, I would love to see that happen. But this question misses the point. Would "leadership in the arts" have a massive impact on tech policy, in the way that "leadership on AI" is likely to impact the arts?

They have an objective to provide an industrial strategy document.

Right, this is the problem - nowhere, to paraphrase Jurassic Park, are they asking "should we do this", and instead they're only asking "how can we do this". If the discussion of "should" is off the table, then there is no point in me continuing this conversation here.

You didn’t like the questions in the survey? They provided an email address to receive open-ended responses

The entire survey was open-ended responses - well, other than a (pretty generous) character limit on the input fields.

if Canadians don’t like the strategic guidance produced by any of these groups, they can pressure their representatives to shape the actual legislation around them.

There has been loads of pushback. I have yet to see this government budge.

Out of curiosity, what is the actual grounding of your beliefs about AI and AI policy?

What is the "grounding" of any belief about anything? That's a much more interesting question, one that AI boosters would do well to think more deeply about.

[–] AGM@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Okay... wow. I even pointed you to two government groups working on other sides of the issue, but you're just ignoring the overall government approach.

The government approach isn't perfect, but I don't have interest in arguing with someone focused on establishing an ideological position, going back to hyperbole again and again, and responding to a reasonable question with stuff stuff like this:

What is the "grounding" of any belief about anything? That's a much more interesting question, one that AI boosters would do well to think more deeply about.

We can just leave it as agreeing to disagree. No point wasting anyone's time.

[–] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Um, I'm not ignoring it, it's simply that the "overall government approach" has been clearly spelled out by the Minister of AI, who has said he will not "over-index on regulation".

That's why we haven't had consultations on any other aspect of AI, only how we can help the industry make money.

As for your question about the grounding of my "belief" about AI - what kind of answer were you expecting, or would you not have acted dismissively toward?