Post Tagged with: "solomon"

2023 US-Canada Summit by Eurasia Group CC BY 2.0 https://flic.kr/p/2osnFe4

An Illusion of Consensus: What the Government Isn’t Saying About the Results of its AI Consultation

The government quietly released a “what we heard” report this week discussing the response to its 30-day sprint AI consultation from last October. Described as the “largest public consultation in the history of ISED”, the report relies heavily on AI for its analysis as the government notes that it used “Cohere Command A, OpenAI GPT-5 nano, Anthropic Claude Haiku and Google Gemini Flash to read through the submissions and identify common themes.” Given that it received 64,600 responses to 26 questions, it says AI enabled it to shrink a process that would typically take many months into a matter of weeks.

In addition to the public consultation survey, AI Minister Evan Solomon formed a 28 person expert committee that provided the government with 32 different papers and reports. Those documents were similarly subject to AI analysis with the “what we heard” report devoting several pages to the expert analysis and recommendations. Yet unlike the public survey responses, the government has posted all the experts’ reports, which allows the public to see the actual advice alongside the government’s summary of it.

Since the government used AI to summarize the expert reports, I thought I would do the same.

Solomon’s Choice: Charting the Future of AI Policy in Canada

The decision to create a Minister for Artificial Intelligence sends an unmistakable signal that the Carney government recognizes the need to prioritize AI as a core part of its economic strategy. My Globe and Mail op-ed notes that while few doubt the importance of AI, what the federal government should do about it is far less certain. The Trudeau government emphasized both government handouts and regulation, with billions in AI spending promises on the one hand and ill-considered legislation that was out of step with global trends on the other. The result was a mish-mash of incoherent policies that left the AI sector confused, civil society frustrated and Canada at risk of being left behind.

Elevating AI to a full ministerial position suggests Prime Minister Mark Carney wants to fix the status quo, but in some ways the new office looks like an impossible job dressed up in ambition. Evan Solomon, the minister, steps into a role full of symbolism but operationally murky. Mr. Solomon may well find that cutting more cheques or introducing regulations won’t solve the issue.

Heritage Minister Guilbeault Says Bill C-10 Will Regulate Social Media Users With Large Number of Viewers

The government’s defence of Bill C-10, the Broadcasting Act reform bill, took another hit over the weekend with what might have been the worst interview yet by Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault (and that includes the CBC interview ten days ago that people are still talking about). In the span of eight minutes, Guilbeault managed to cite the wrong section in the bill, indicate that social media users with a large number of followers would be regulated, and justify the regulation by assuring that it would come from the CRTC, rather than the government directly.