PeachPie đSay Hi to Tech Bro Carney | The Tyee
thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/11/03/Say-Hi-Tech-Bro-CâŠ
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The articleâs criticisms seem to all be addressing problems with generative AI, whereas the places that are getting these grants (my lab included) donât do very much of that. Itâs nearly all âold-schoolâ machines learning for modeling and various optimization problems.
The one problem I would agree with is the widening wealth inequality. I donât know what the solution to that would be. Ideally, it would involve getting rid of the current capitalist system rather than impeding technological progress. I donât feel okay with someone telling me that Iâm not allowed to automate tasks that I donât like doing. In fact, I think everyone should have access to automations for things they need to do but donât want to do. Let us focus on the arts, not on doing laundry.
BroBot9000
Fuck using Ai, let alone using US Ai. Itâs a fucking propaganda and misinformation spewing spyware.
AGM
Fear mongering article imo. Canada does need to be very on top of this issue, because of the risks of not doing so. The national AI task force the government set up also has some good people on it. In reality, I would say Canada has not been moving fast enough on the topic.
patatas
I donât 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, itâs about clearing a path to pouring billions of public dollars into an industry whose most apparent use case is surveillance.
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 isnât totally unfair, but there is a lot of academia on the panel. Itâs not just industry, but itâs 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 arenât part of it, especially on education. Itâs 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 Canadaâs 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 donât think thatâs 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 isnât governance, but strategy.
I also disagree the only use case is surveillance. Thatâs 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.
Itâs not perfect, but itâs not as terrifying as the Tyee article makes it out.
Fair enough, I guess I missed the lone labour rep in between all the folks from Cohere.
Thereâs like one person from Cohere.
Was rhetorical, but sure OK, letâs 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 âcharityâ 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.
Youâve listed 13 that are on the industry side, including one who bridges academia and commercialization. Thereâs 11-12 who fall across civil society, academia and research. That doesnât seem wildly unbalanced to me, but nobody is saying itâs perfect so feel free to suggest how you think it would be better structured and what categories you would look to form it around.
kbal
AI, fighter jets, economically unviable mining projects, attack submarines, oil pipelines, carbon capture boondoggles â Canadaâs government sure does have a lot of money to spend on things that donât look much like good investments.
Look, I hate Carney as much as the next left of centre Canadian, but wanting to make sure we donât fall behind the rest of the world is not a bad thing⊠Now if he implements it and peopleâs lives get worse because of it, then yeah.
cecilkorik
Wanting to fall behind the rest of the world is a good thing when the rest of the world is charging mindlessly towards a cliff.
If you think all AI use is off a cliff youâre ignorant.
Throwing trillions at it? Thatâs bad. Exploring adoption and growing industry here? Thatâs pretty reasonable.
So⊠throwing trillions at it is bad, but Iâm not following the part where you implied Iâm potentially ignorant. Do you, or donât you, want to fall behind one of the main countries that is throwing trillions at it, which you admit is bad? Is letting ourselves fall behind and proceeding very cautiously not reasonable? Did we not weather the 2008 financial crisis with much the same attitude?
Instructions unclear, got afraid of falling behind and accidentally tied my much smaller economy with a very sturdy rope to a country that is soon to be falling off a cliff.
That doesnât require a Minister of AI, it doesnât require massive data centre approvals or incentives, and it definitely doesnât require a permissive regulatory environment that insulates AI companies from liability for harms caused.
In what way would we âfall behind the rest of the worldâ? The article outlines a ton of reasons why pushing AI will make us all worse off.
So, Iâm asking for a citation, itâs not letting me post?
I can see three posts saying âcitation?â including the one above.
But Iâm not sure exactly what you are asking to see a citation for
Citation: Proof of what youâre posting.
The text part of the original post was a quote from the article
My take. The wealthy world wide, not just Canada, not just USA, are embracing AI. Every time you use that self check-out, youâre losing EI, CPP, and taxes. Someone is losing a job. Why are you checking out your own items?? Because people arenât willing to take a stand. People arenât willing to wait in a line, and say âfuck youâ. I AM NOT CHECKING OUT MY OWN ITEMS. But, you wonât do it will you? You wonât take a stand.
Personally, I donât use AI and I donât use the self-checkout. Obviously there are plenty of other automations that have become part of the fabric of daily life, but none that are so disempowering and deskilling to the user as AI.
JFC.
Budget is coming out at 1PM PT/4PM ET for better or for worse. So until then we can only speculate.
Looks like itâs a billion dollars for AI, and theyâre scrapping the greenwashing rules that might have made it expensive to lie about the impact of data centres :(