but carney's rhetoric tho

Coming back to this story, the care economy has been driving the Canadian job market since the pandemic, but especially 2024-2025, despite the clampdown on international study permits. It's quite something that this sector is not part of the Canada Strong industrial strategy.

”Transport Minister MacKinnon has said Canada has a collaborative relationship with the FAA that stretches back decades in matters of aircraft certification. He suggested last week that the matter had been resolved.” The problem, of course, is every Trump regulatory decision is inherently suspect.

Post a banger not in English #MusicSky youtu.be/kUfSMuYni20?...

"whether the formal USMCA review process is adhered to or not, we will be into a difficult renegotiation period with the Americans with no specific end date and one that could easily deteriorate into acrimonious confrontation." And that's the optimistic view. Good article from Lawrence Herman.

Insightful thread. I think this argument rhymes with work @ntusikov.bsky.social and I have done using Susan Strange’s knowledge structure concept. AI’s effect on society is primarily in its reconception of knowledge away from “scientific” expertise and toward correlation-driven oracular knowledge.

You mean Canada gives away its natural resources to companies almost for free? I’m shocked, shocked to learn of this… www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

The only way they could say the “vast majority” of overviews are helpful is if they had taken a large random sample of overviews given out to actual users & had humans rate if they were helpful. Did they do that? Or are they just basing it off “most overviews dont result in complaints“ or something?

In medical areas that I have expertise, the AI summaries that come up on a search are extremely dangerous. I said what I said.

Also, chatbots should be regulated as medical devices. If they’re not fit for purpose, they should be removed from the market. Unless our government simply doesn’t care about actually doing their job. Which increasingly seems to be the case.

Best line in a story highlighting the prevalence of false health info from AI: “In Google’s response to the Guardian piece, it said the vast majority of its AI Overviews were factual and helpful, and it was continuously making improvements.” So only some of Google’s advice is harmful. Got it.

I’ve been saying for months that how the Carney government jumps on the F-35 will tell us a great deal about whether they truly intend to distance Canada from the US. Carney is still moving Canada toward deeper US integration. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

A warning to other countries like Canada that depend on FDA regulation of AI medical devices. With FDA cutbacks, "federal regulators are now less equipped to handle the flood of new ones." More patient injuries & medical errors as firms rush these devices to market. www.reuters.com/investigatio...

Although this could be the off-ramp that Leaf fans have been looking for?

And DND still tries to maintain the "plug-and-play" approach with the US, insisting on purchasing US F-35 fighters beyond the ones we're stuck with... Our senior officers all served with US forces in the "good old days" and seem unable to appreciate the new context, which requires a new strategy.

I've been thinking about Carney's argument that only countries with a strong economy can afford a "principled" foreign policy. I think the reason why it's bugging me is that it presumes a whole bunch of things about economics and how countries accrue influence and power that are simply wrong.

"Does this Super Bowl’s record-breaking A.I. ad splurge also portend a coming pop?" One can only hope. (Good article.)

Alright. Fine. Fighter aircraft AMA, as someone who independently reviewed Canada's choices in 2012-2014 and 2019. Go!

CBC continues to scold Canadians on the need to keep our "politics" out of the discussion on whether we get strong-armed into buying the F-35. Lol... the F-35 is all about politics. It is the politics of threat and intimidation against our independence. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

There is no way to fix the core problem, which is that the statistical production of symbols by definition is not based on their meaning

Human beings can understand many ways symbols may be related. LLMs only model one: these things often appear together. This sequence is in some sense likely. Likelihood is not sufficient

A thoughtful essay worth your time. But I wonder if focusing on capitalism v socialism misses the more fundamental fault line: AI's supplanting of "scientific" knowledge with a new form of oracular knowledge. Gonna have to think about this one...

One interesting point about Carney’s EV plan from last night’s At Issue panel. It’s targeted at a sector (EVs) that Trump doesn’t care about/is actively hostile towards. Which reduces the chance of retaliation. Good strategy.

They are. Plainly, they open numerous vulnerabilities. www.mckinsey.com/capabilities...

Not satire cybernews.com/news/waymo-o...

One of several AI questions that so many people would rather pretend doesn’t exist. (The other big one involves the impossibility of gaining meaningful consent for the use of data underling AI models.)

Ongoing deep integration by any other name. These are not the actions of a government with any intention of substantively distancing Canada from US influence. Words v actions. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

Good op-ed-style analysis by Andrew Coyne. Only the federalism part is a bit shallow, to say the least. Unlike in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, we generally don't recognize the importance of federal governance anymore. Not sure why. www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

So the government’s proposed EV rebate is $5,000 for cars under $50k. Which will cover exactly how many cars? The 2026 Nissan Leaf is pretty much the smallest, cheapest EV in the Canadian market (ask me how I know). Its cheapest model lists at $48k before taxes, accessories, etc etc.

Carney’s auto strategy looks promising. But if, as suggested here, it depends on eliminating US tariffs & a new USMCA, that’s a huge red flag. Any policy that depends on the return of an unattainable certainty in Can-US relations is based on hope, not reality. www.theglobeandmail.com/business/com...

Good points here pointing to a failure to focus on reforming fundamental governance processes. Left unsaid is that the federal government under Trudeau and now Carney has *chosen not to* addresses these issues for an entire year. This isn’t a failure of Canadians. It’s an ongoing policy choice.

That’s nice. Now ask about what Elon Musk’s Teslas are capable of doing right now: www.jalopnik.com/your-car-is-... www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art...

In contrast, Canada's Minister for AI Promotion took to X after midnight on a Sunday to let people know that Canada wouldn't be banning X. The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept. bsky.app/profile/rach...

In Davos, the message was that the US under Trump - and Rubio - had demolished the rules based order, & nothing is normal anymore. Today, the message is we're embracing & working closely with those same guys who demolished the rules based order, as if it was normal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

How many provinces and territories will show us leadership on shunning the CSAM platform before the Carney government gets around to it?

I've been sitting on this thread since maybe this time last year. Not in a tea-spilling way, in a procrastinatn/self-doubt way. I thought it'd become redundant. But we've endured like 4 major cycles now of "everyone realizing" what marginalized ppl ALREADY KNEW ALL ALONG. So here we go: 🧵

Good.

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In contrast to Europe, Canada’s response has been to leave X/Musk’s many, many inexcusable actions to the largely toothless Privacy Commissioner, with AI Promotion Minister Evan Solomon reassuring everyone via a Midnight Tweet (on X — classy) that Canada wouldn’t be banning X.

The pass Carney’s getting for the gap between what people think he’s doing and his actual policies reminds me of how progressives in the 90s were convinced that Paul Martin was on their side, even as he gutted the social programs they valued.

Making life of a university instructor so easy telling students the importance of doing their own essay writing. Well done, gov't.

This is how you destroy the foundations of a civilization: eliminate its knowledge base. Simply barbaric.

"The FCM says it has learned from officials that a vague reference in the budget to reallocating funds from the Canada Public Transit Fund will in fact mean a $5-billion cut over 10 years" This is a very slippery government. Whether it's a budget or a high-profile speech, best to read the fine print

The deeper problem here: Municipalities still don't have an appropriate role/place in intergovernmental relations, something scholarship on Canadian federalism has flagged for decades. If the PM was serious about cooperative federalism, he would try to address this governance deficit.

Thousands of people wrote thoughtful answers about AI risks, only for the government to put them in an AI word grinder and output a predictable summary. The consultation simulacra lets them pretend they've done their due diligence and continue down this idiotic path.

This is insulting to everyone who took time and care to submit input to ISED's consultation, probably at the expense of other priorities given the forced urgency. To reverse that quote on reading genAI writing: why should we bother to write when the government can't even be bothered to read?

The illusion of consultation.

This the most condescending bs. It's okay for us to ask thousands of you to complete this long, badly framed, honestly quite onerous survey, to "consult"... but no one is ever going to even read what you wrote. It's just grist for the mill, to create a report of general sentiment.

A recent article suggests that Canadians who question the purchase of the F-35 are emotional and driven by deep-seated anti-Americanism. Such is the view of those promoting the "interoperability" of our planes with US forces. What if the threat is from the US? My latest: substack.com/home/post/p-...

"...The best we can reasonably hope for is a privacy-maxxing front end like DDG." I'm pretty sure there's at least one other option, and one other income source, that needs to be on the table.