The Prime Minister should stop boasting, Canada is no longer at the head of the race in the field of artificial intelligence.
And it’s not the 2.4 billion (over five years) that he just announced in Montreal that will give us back first place. Even if Justin Trudeau had the “natural” intelligence to be accompanied by Yoshua Bengio, our renowned “godfather of AI”, his government does not have a very stellar record in the digital world.
Joshua Bengio
Archive photo, AFP
Starting with its failure to “spit out” the digital giants who have devastated our press organizations and who risk ruining our film and television industry. It has been eight years since Mélanie Joly, the Minister of Heritage at the time, began her offensive against the GAFA. Three other ministers have since moved to Canadian Heritage and we are still waiting for the CRTC to announce what will happen to the Online Streaming Act. As for the Online News Act, it seems to have been full with the $100 million annually wrested from Google with pain and misery. Since then, there has been dead calm in the government offensive against the GAFA.
WHEN CÉLINE DION SINGS
In the world of music, we are tearing our hair out. Performers and composers collect crumbs from the big platforms. Musicians and singers, for their part, do not receive a cent when the works they perform are found in cinema, on television or on online platforms. Celine Dion, for example, receives nothing when the film is presented Titanic because she wasn’t the one who composed My heart Will Go On. Only the radio gives back a few meager pinottes to musicians and performers.
1er January 2023, in a disaster, Ottawa extended by 20 years works that had not yet fallen into the public domain, thus responding to the desperate appeals of authors and publishing houses. As for the revision of the copyright law, solemnly promised in 2021 by Ministers Rodriguez and Champagne, it is still waiting. The Artificial Intelligence and Data Act was tabled in the House of Commons two years ago, but it has still not been adopted.
FAR FROM FIRST PLACE
And where does Canada rank when it comes to artificial intelligence? According to Tortoise Media’s Global AI Index ranking, we are in 5e place for our ability to use it and our infrastructure dedicated to AI is at 23e rank. Not enough to claim success as our federal politicians did on Sunday, but it is at least a good reason to commit tens of millions to build a substantial IT structure, for use by researchers and companies in the sector. of artificial intelligence.
To what extent can we trust the federal government in this area? It is certainly not the way in which he managed the Phoenix payroll system or the now laughable ArriveCAN that can make us hope that he will manage to make the most of these 2.4 billion. On Sunday, after Trudeau’s announcement, a Conservative Party spokesperson said the current government does not have the competence to manage such a program.
Nor a next conservative government for me!