Ottawa Doling Out Grants For Development Of Artificial Intelligence, Job Market To Be Crushed

An issue that isn’t covered often enough is the role of automation and artificial intelligence on the labour market. While employment rates rise and fall, the prevalence of these new technologies is certain to have devastating effects on the amount of jobs available.

What happens when large numbers of people find that their fields no longer exist? What happens when professionals who have spent decades learning a trade or skill see it evaporate almost overnight? The long and short term effects of this are something essential to cover.

It should be noted that many who champion this next industrial revolution are also advocates of open borders and mass economic immigration. They also support so-called free trade, or globalization, which sees companies outsourced simply to reduce production costs. What happens when these are combined? In terms of supply and demand, this isn’t difficult to figure out.

[1] Continue high levels of immigration
[2] Outsource work to 3rd world to reduce costs (where possible)
[3] Slash available jobs and industries to work in locally

It gets even worse. Not only is this happening in Canada, but large amounts of taxpayer money are used to accelerate the collapse of the job market. The examples below are just a portion of what is being handed out under the title of “artificial intelligence”.

ORGANIZATION DATE AMOUNT
AbCellera Biologics Inc. Apr. 14, 2020 $175,631,000
AIMS Global Secretariat Aug. 26, 2020 $2,500,000
Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute Jul. 12, 2019 $2,750,000
Algolux Inc. Mar. 1, 2021 $667,000
AltaML Inc. Nov. 23, 2020 $1,000,000
Apollo Machine & Welding Ltd. Apr. 1, 2021 $581,500
Association des médecins vétérinaires practiciens Apr. 9, 2021 $998,456
Ayogo Health Inc. Oct. 2, 2018 $1,730,740
BoG of NorQuest Col & Concordia Uni Dec. 30, 2019 $1,150,000
CAE Inc. Jul. 16, 2018 $150,000,000
CAE Inc. Jan. 28, 2021 $190,000,000
Canadensys Aerospace Corporation Oct. 8, 2020 $2,498,664
Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network Inc. Jul. 6, 2020 $49,500,000
Canadian Agri-Food Automation and Intelligence Network Inc. Jul. 7, 2020 $30,000,000
Canadian Forage and Grassland Association Jul. 3, 2020 $996,032
Carleton University Aug. 15, 2019 $1,500,000
Circle Cardiovascular Imaging Inc. Nov. 19, 2020 $2,647,000
COENCORP Consultant Corporation May 1, 2021 $600,000
Cognitive Systems Corp. Aug. 22, 2018 $7,268,261
COREM Aug. 8, 2019 $860,000
Council of Canadian Academies Jan. 7, 2020 $1,147,956
Eddyfi NDT inc. Nov. 9, 2018 $1,550,675
Ecoation Innovative Solutions Inc. Aug. 24, 2020 $3,875,000
Element AI Inc. Jun. 10, 2020 $20,000,000
Enns Brothers Ltd. Jul. 1, 2020 $660,000
Fluidigm Canada Inc. Jun. 1, 2018 $650,000
Giatec Scientific Inc. Oct. 1, 2018 $800,000
Genov, Roman Apr. 1, 2017 $1,136,025
Governors of the University of Alberta Oct. 29, 2018 $2,500,000
Governing Council of the University of Toronto Aug. 3, 2018 $25,000,000
Governing Council of the University of Toronto Mar. 30, 2019 $17,000,000
Governing Council of the University of Toronto Dec. 1, 2020 $1,254,375
Imagia Cybernétique Inc. Aug. 31, 2018 $1,000,000
Information Technology Association of Canada Nov. 1, 2018 $1,980,358
Linamar Corporation Jul. 6, 2018 $49,000,000
Lytica Inc Nov. 6, 2019 $1,080,000
Mckee Demczyk, Debbie Mar. 7, 2018 $2,000,000
McMaster University Oct. 18, 2019 $1,479,441
MindBridge Analytics Inc. May 1, 2019 $14,500,000
Miru Smart Technologies Corp. Apr. 1, 2021 $600,000
Mission Control Space Services Inc. Feb. 3, 2021 $3,042,959
Montréal International Jul. 9, 2020 $9,480,000
North Inc. Nov. 8, 2018 $24,000,000
North Inc. Oct 31, 2018 $24,000,000
Octopusapp Inc. Sep. 1, 2020 $3,000,000
OCED Aug. 27, 2020 $982,000
Purdie, Thomas G Apr. 1, 2013 $651,061
Savormetrics Inc. Nov. 30, 2018 $867,000
Scale.AI Mar. 15, 2018 $229,765,127
Sheikhzadeh, Mehdi Mar. 7, 2018 $2,000,000
SSIMWAVE Apr. 1, 2019 $4,232,550
Sunnybrook Research Institute May 21, 2019 $49,000,000
Tangent Design Engineering Ltd. Feb. 1, 2017 $600,000
Tangent Design Engineering Ltd. Aug. 1, 2021 $700,000
Technologies Numetrix inc. Jun. 8, 2021 $608,288
Teledyne Digital Imaging Inc. Jul. 15, 2020 $1,000,000
Terry Fox Research Institute & Imagia Cybernetics Inc. Aug. 28, 2020 $49,000,000
Tessonics Inc. Apr. 1, 2021 $600,000
University of British Columbia Jan. 1, 2020 $1,203,433
University of Manitoba Mar. 5, 2021 $1,603,078
Valacta Limited Partnership Dec. 2, 2019 $566,617
Vineland Research and Innovation Centre Apr. 1, 2018 $4,138,197

This is by no means all of the grants, just the larger ones listed.

Keep in mind, while Canada continues to bring record numbers of people into the country, we are automating entire industries. This will lead to massive losses of employment for those already here. The result is far more people, competing for far fewer positions. This sort of thing typically leads to much lower wages and benefits.

Getting artificial intelligence into aerospace and highly technical fields seems harmless enough, but it’s not going to stop there. Proponents of the AI trend never seem to realize that their jobs can also be automated out of existence as well.

This AI push will also impact the low skill market as well, and nothing is off the table. One such grant involves spending over $4 million to implement AI into the agricultural industry, and to automate a lot of the more “low skill” work. Another grant was for $30,000,000. Depending on the locations, this could mean the lack of any other options for many.

Far from being hyperbolic, automation replacing jobs has happened for decades, and will continue to do so. The service industry seems to be next on the list. Does anyone seriously think that workers will be hired back once replaced by robots? What happens to the people who can’t find work as a result of this?

Without an alternative in place for the people impacted by these drastic changes, expect chaos and instability to result from this initiative.

An interesting side note: the “political left” typically opposes free trade and globalization for the reason that it undercuts wages, and sees jobs shipped overseas. In short, decent work disappears. Mass automation will have much the same effect, and yet, silence from those same activists. How strange.

As for the “political right”: how exactly does gutting entire industries help secure an economic recovery? This trend is surely going to get worse.

Seriously, who thought this was a good idea for society?

(1) https://search.open.canada.ca/en/gc
(2) https://search.open.canada.ca/en/gc/?sort=agreement_start_date_s%20desc&page=1&search_text=artificial%20intelligence
(3) https://search.open.canada.ca/en/gc/id/csa-asc,003-2020-2021-Q4-04881,current
(4) https://search.open.canada.ca/en/gc/id/aafc-aac,235-2018-2019-Q3-00066,current
(5) https://search.open.canada.ca/en/gc/id/ic,230-2021-2022-Q1-0143,current
(6) https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/22/restaurants-looking-for-labor-and-speed-turn-to-robots-.html

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