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Originally Posted by TorqueDog
A "pro-labour" plan that tries to slow or block AI is pointless, though; you can't regulate automation out of existence, especially as it has already been around for decades in some form or another. The real labour position is what happens after the jobs go, ie: basic economic protection. If a company replaces a thousand workers with automation then it should pay into the same tax base those workers used to support, funding a real income floor for people who get displaced. How do you accomplish that? F-ck knows, but it's at least the start of a conversation that the other parties aren't having. An NDP with a real pro-labour stance could hammer on the Liberal plan as the classic corporatism it is, really. Cheer on AI adoption, monitor the fallout, hand out a small upskilling credit (ie: "welp, you're on your own now"). It does nothing for someone who already lost their job. Re-skilling will help a minority, but there will not be enough new roles to absorb everyone who gets replaced.
If the NDP wants relevance, they gotta be the ones sounding the alarm bells that the other parties aren't: Automation is coming fast, it will erase huge numbers of jobs, and -- as neither the Liberals nor Cons seem to have a sensible plan to address it -- their platform is to make sure workers don't get crushed by it.
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Yes, I agree. Which is why I didn't like the vibe of Tony's approach to the AI conversation.
Canada needs to get in front of AI and address it head on and I think there are two key issues that need to be addressed quickly.
1) Nationalize AI. If Canadians are going to adopt AI, we need to ensure that the AI is Canadian. It can still be "Microsoft" or "Google" or whatever but they need to house it on Canadian servers and that the data from the AI is not being given to foreign governments or agencies. (This would help ensure local jobs)
Following that, align the AI to Canadian requirements and values to ensure it is not
telling people to kill themselves and offering to write the suicide note. It would also be good to force the AI companies to force more fact based results and discourage misinformation.
Any AI company that refuses to play within the rules of Canada gets blocked from being deployed. This wouldn't really come as a surprise to most SaaS companies as many Canadian companies force their data to be in Canada data centres to protect the data from US Government overreach (they have a law saying they can look at anything they want in a US data centre).
2) Catch the fallout of AI on the workforce. We already have SOX reporting and SOX compliance. The audits can cover things like "how many computers did a company buy and how many are in use". All that would really need to be done is expand the SOX audits to include AI consumption and AI agents. Once you have that data you can ensure the proper taxes are applied based on their use of AI to replace the workforce.