People hypothesized that this was due to the whole bill C-18 news thing[1], but since Google has capitulated and paid off the media, so that doesn't seem to be the reason, outside of maybe licking-wounds spite.
Canada has no unique privacy or other laws that apply to AI. If anything our protections are rather underwhelming compared to most peer countries -- we basically just echo whatever the US does -- so that certainly doesn't seem to be it. Such a weird, unexplained situation. At this point I just have to assume Pichai has some grievance with Canada or something.
Thankfully Google is a serious laggard in this realm. We have full access to OpenAI products, including through Microsoft properties, Perplexity, and various others. So, eh.
[1] - Like, literally, every Google employee/apologist in here claimed it was C-18. C-18 is basically settled for Google, so now it's...checks notes...that some government talking head once said they need to think about regulating AI, just like every single country and jurisdiction on the planet. Add the tried and true "Canada's just too small a market" bit that somehow is used when Google is busy pandering to markets a small fraction of the size.
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.
> Canada has no unique privacy or other laws that apply to AI
Canada has plenty of unique laws, whether or not they apply to ai is a question yet to be answered. It seems pretty reasonable to me for google to take a cautious approach to our unique legal landscape
emayljames|2 years ago
esafak|2 years ago
drcongo|2 years ago
eviks|2 years ago
fudged71|2 years ago
llm_nerd|2 years ago
Canada has no unique privacy or other laws that apply to AI. If anything our protections are rather underwhelming compared to most peer countries -- we basically just echo whatever the US does -- so that certainly doesn't seem to be it. Such a weird, unexplained situation. At this point I just have to assume Pichai has some grievance with Canada or something.
Thankfully Google is a serious laggard in this realm. We have full access to OpenAI products, including through Microsoft properties, Perplexity, and various others. So, eh.
[1] - Like, literally, every Google employee/apologist in here claimed it was C-18. C-18 is basically settled for Google, so now it's...checks notes...that some government talking head once said they need to think about regulating AI, just like every single country and jurisdiction on the planet. Add the tried and true "Canada's just too small a market" bit that somehow is used when Google is busy pandering to markets a small fraction of the size.
AlanYx|2 years ago
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.
notatoad|2 years ago
Canada has plenty of unique laws, whether or not they apply to ai is a question yet to be answered. It seems pretty reasonable to me for google to take a cautious approach to our unique legal landscape
Tyr42|2 years ago