Bot Summer – iPolitics – Daily News N Blog

The much anticipated AI strategy dropped today. And yes, “dropped” feels like the right word because ministers have been teasing and promising it for so many months that it’s almost giving Rihanna coming back with more music.

“The question isn’t whether AI will transform our lives. It will. AI is already changing how we work, how we learn and how we connect,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said.

“The question is, will it improve the lives of all Canadians or benefit only a few? And that’s why we must take a positive, pragmatic and prudent approach that builds safe, reliable and sovereign AI for workers and businesses, for Canada, and for our allies.”

The plan includes a pledge to boost the public’s trust in AI by offering free training. It also promises legislation aimed at tackling concerns about surveillance pricing and chatbot safety.

The strategy promises to create up to 90,000 AI-related jobs for young people and offers what it calls a “pro-worker” approach.

It says that a wider adoption of AI could help create 250,000 new jobs by 2031.

The Conference Board of Canada previously projected that, under high adoption scenarios, a “short-term pain” period could lead to the loss of 555,000 jobs by 2030.

Aya Dufour’s got this one.

*Sean Fraser arrives for a national caucus meeting, in Ottawa, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby*

Justice Minister Sean Fraser says Canadians “can’t afford” to wait any longer for new protections criminalizing the use of sexualized AI deepfakes as the Liberals brace for a potential clash with the Senate over their latest criminal justice bill.

He told reporters outside the House on Thursday that Parliament needs to urgently pass Bill C-16 before the summer recess as more Canadians are victimized by the use of sexualized AI deepfakes with their likeness.

“I believe Canadians could benefit, but given what’s playing out in our communities every single day, we can’t afford a months long delay to have these protections benefit victims,” Fraser said.

“When the police are asking for it in the news, when judges are declaring the need for relief from the bench, it’s incumbent, in my view, upon parliament to take action, and to take action today.”

While it’s illegal to share intimate images without consent, deepfakes pose a practical challenge.

A Halifax man was acquitted in March creating deepfakes of women he knew after the judge ruled the current law “does not reflect the technology that exists today.”

Marco Vigliotti has more.

Also, Carney says he has “not yet formed an opinion” on Premier Doug Ford’s plan to expand Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.

This comes despite repeated claims from the Ontario government that the federal government is supportive.

Answering a question by QP Briefing Thursday, Carney said the federal government will launch a public consultation process this summer before making any decisions on the future of the airport.

“I personally have not formed an opinion, just to be absolutely clear, on the airport,” Carney said.

“There’s many, many issues. There’s issues of transportation. There’s issues of economics, but there’s issues of neighbourhoods, quality of life, environmental concerns or issues, parks and other elements,” the prime minister said. “So we’ll use a process. The federal government is very much an actor here.”

Barbara Patrocinio got up extra early for this.

In Other Headlines

Internationally

Elsewhere, Hezbollah has rejected a US-brokered ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments, throwing the future of a truce in Lebanon and regional peace negotiations into question.

The group’s leader, Naim Qassem, called the plan a “roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people” in a statement on Thursday.

He demanded a complete ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and said that as long as Lebanese villages were being bombed, northern Israel would not be safe.

“As long as the occupation exists, the resistance will continue,” he said. “We call upon the officials to put an end to this farce and humiliation called direct negotiations.”

The Israeli and the Lebanese governments had agreed a ceasefire to end hostilities on Monday night. The deal called for a complete cessation of fire from Hezbollah, which is aligned with Iran, and the evacuation of all its fighters south of the Litani River.

The Guardian has more.

Meanwhile, CBS News fired its longtime 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley on Tuesday evening, amid an ongoing, tumultuous shakeup of the organisation under new leadership.

Newly installed CBS News chief Bari Weiss fired a string of staff at the news programme last week, including its longtime executive producer, and tapped a new editor, Nick Bilton, with no broadcast news experience.

The moves inflamed concerns the network’s leadership would undermine independent journalism at the US’s longest-running and highest-rated news programme.

At a staff meeting on Monday, Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering 60 Minutes”, US media reported. Bilton called Pelley uncooperative in a termination letter sent to the host.

The BBC has contacted CBS News for comment.

In a statement after his firing, Pelley accused the organisation of becoming more politicised and forcing him to “inject falsehoods and bias” into his work.