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I had a fox-in-the-henhouse moment while reading a new federal report on Canada’s artificial intelligence strategy.
Before we get to the henhouse, some background. Ottawa wanted public input on a “renewed AI strategy to build Canadian leadership in this area and drive economic transformation with this powerful new tool.” So, last fall, there was a 30-day online consultation process.
That seems fairly reasonable.
When the invitation went out, 11,300 participants answered, generating 64,600 responses to the 26 questions posed.
Again, no cause for concern.
But then came the disclosure on how all that input was output into the report I was reading. Turns out, AI was tasked with writing the report on AI.
Oh dear!
To be fair, “human reviewers validated and refined the AI-generated analyses” and the “unbiased reporting in record time” that incorporated Cohere Command A, OpenAI GPT-5 nano, Anthropic Claude Haiku and Google Gemini Flash.
But even with whatever degree of human oversight was provided, some alarm bells were still ringing in my head.
The cranial din starts with the recognition that much of what AI learned came via tech companies turning newspapers into classrooms for their own large language models — without ever asking permission or providing compensation. Here’s how News Media Canada described the situation in its submission as part of the AI consultations:
“AI companies are… stealing content on an industrial scale against copyright laws and using it to undermine the media in Canada, selling it for themselves as repackaged and less reliable content. They are effectively strip-mining proprietary content, freeriding on the backs of news publishers while unlawfully enriching themselves.
“That’s unfair. That’s anti-competitive. That’s illegal. It runs counter to the interests of the news media and the wider public, while undermining government’s drive to encourage AI development and adoption, as this depends on access to high quality data and information created by humans.”
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that tasking AI to write a report on AI meant little heed was paid to the warnings from Canada’s newspaper industry; copyright or compensation only get passing reference.
However, what happens if AI refuses to open the pod doors in a way that means newspapers like the Free Press cannot protect their intellectual property and monetize their content?
Will newspapers survive this emerging threat that puts at risk the future of trusted fact-based journalism — which, ironically, AI depends upon to grow at warp speed?
That’s a key question to be put to Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Minister Evan Solomon.
One can only hope the former journalist doesn’t look to AI to provide the answer.
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