I liked some of what he said around focusing on applications across industries e.g. save fertilizer in farming, decrease diagnostic time in healthcare. I liked the talk about enacting privacy legislation.

I did not like how for everything he said about sovereign AI infra ended with “and if we fail to do it ourselves we’ll buy it” (from you know who.) I didn’t hear any contingency plan for tackling potential rising unemployment as a result of AI integration. Seems like they’re betting on the AI-creates-more-jobs-than-it-destroys scenario.

He did not address the question about losing sovereignty by embedding US tech into our economy, e.g. what happens if the US turns off our AI access at a point when our economy is reliant on it.

Ultimately I’m very skeptical even though I think there’s genuine potential for social benefit from productively applying AI where it makes sense. I’m skeptical that this bunch would deliver those social benefits. I think they’re likely to deliver benefits to capital/business from instead of working Canadians. I’d be happy to be wrong.

What did you think about it?