| >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. |
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.