[AlanYx]

The problem in Canada is layers of legal uncertainty. Quebec recently passed Bill 64, which purports to regulate applications of AI. The Federal government is in second reading of bill C-27, which will impose an onerous regulatory regime on AI. (It is unclear if forthcoming amendments will prohibit open source AI tools entirely.) On top of that, the Federal privacy commissioner and five provincial privacy commissioners are currently investigating whether to sanction OpenAI under PIPEDA and various provincial privacy laws.

It's too small of a market for the level of legal risk, unless the upside is huge, which it isn't for at least the public-facing version of Bard.

Anthropic's Claude also isn't available in Canada, likely for similar reasons.

[llm_nerd]

>The problem in Canada is layers of legal uncertainty.

Every government on the planet has laws which "might" apply to AI, for which one could claim "uncertainty". The EU's privacy protections make Quebec's bill 64 look positively pedestrian.

Pointing to various government agencies making noise about something is just a meaningless distraction. Again, literally every government on the planet has someone who says maybe they should think about maybe considering.

Canada walks in lockstep with the US on virtually all matters. As a US company, Google even has special protections in Canada under NAFTAv2 that they have nowhere else on the planet.

And again, this all seemingly is zero concern for Microsoft or OpenAI, among many others. I guess those scary Quebec laws (that don't even apply) aren't as formidable as held.

"Anthropic's Claude also isn't available in Canada, likely for similar reasons."

Claude is unavailable on most of the planet, and seems to be a capacity issue more than anything else. Bard is available pretty much everywhere on the planet but Canada. Like at this point it is very obvious that it's "personal".

As to the too small of a market claims, this is always such a weird one. Bard operates in much, much smaller markets. All of which have onerous regulations and are having the rumblings of scary new restrictions on AI.

[AlanYx]

>Canada walks in lockstep with the US on virtually all matters.

On the topic of AI regulation, if you look at Bill C-27 and Canada's involvement in the ongoing Council of Europe negotiations towards a treaty on AI, Canada is currently aligned much more closely to the EU's AI Act. The same goes for privacy law; PIPEDA is closer in spirit to the GDPR but even more ambiguous and in some need of modernization.

And as we've seen with today's announcement, which also excludes the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, and the UK, Google's approach to regulatory risks associated with AI appears to be a cautious one.

>And again, this all has seemingly is zero concern for Microsoft or OpenAI...

Microsoft is willing to shoulder the legal risks because they have a solid revenue stream through Azure OpenAI services. OpenAI itself will just block Canada if the regulatory authorities get too aggressive, like they did temporarily in Italy until a deal was reached.

[llm_nerd]

>And as we've seen with today's announcement, which also excludes the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, and the UK

I'm unsure what this is referencing. Bard (and thus Gemini Pro) is available in all of the EEA, Switzerland and the UK.

>OpenAI itself will just block Canada if the regulatory authorities get too aggressive

So Google has withheld Bard from Canada for a year+ because maybe at some future point Canada might have some burdensome AI legislation (if some toothless bills that are unlikely to ever receive ascent might take some future form eventually), and this is validated because OpenAI can withdraw their service if at some point Canada might have some burdensome AI legislation.

Okay.

[AlanYx]

>I'm unsure what this is referencing. Bard (and thus Gemini Pro) is available in all of the EEA, Switzerland and the UK.

I'm referring to today's release of Imagen2 within Bard. If you check the Google Support page, it says: "Image generation in Bard is available in most countries, except in the European Economic Area (EEA), Switzerland, and the UK."