Prime Minister Mark Carney has made AI investment a massive pillar of his government's economic plan. He appointed a Minister of AI and Digital Innovation and he tied in a new department focusing on AI research in a massive military spending announcement. You'd think with such a push, news media would delve into what this materially translates to for the average Canadian. That hasn't been the case. Most coverage has been sparse, and in the military announcement, it was omitted in a lot of stories. Meanwhile the coverage we do get leans towards the tech industry's priorities. This week on The North State, Paris Marx writer, critic and host of the tech critical podcasts Tech Won’t Save Us and System Crash joins Scott to talk about the Liberal government's AI investments and the news media's inability to properly cover this new push.

Check out Paris' podcasts: Tech Won't Save Us and System Crash

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Intro Music: Vigilante - Cross Dog

Artwork by Zo at Studio Bonjourhi

Sources and further reading:

https://readthecatch.ca/the-emperors-new-ai-economy-ft-paris-marx-the-north-state-podcast

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Indigenous consent is all well and good, you see, but why should we let that get in the way of resource extraction? Bills in BC, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia all aim at speeding up projects like mining for uranium and critical resources, pipelines or those in forestry, with Indigenous condemnation all the way. Meanwhile, Carney's Liberal Party is tabling similar legislation at the federal level, proposing to give cabinet almost complete control over deciding which projects can be rammed through. This week on The North State, Karyn Pugliese, instructor at Carleton University and National Affairs reporter for APTN joins Scott to shit talk the news. What do these bills mean, what will the response be, and how legacy news media has failed to paint the full picture.

CORRECTION: Scott mentions an article by The Economist, this article was later withdrawn because editorial was "not satisfied with the sourcing."

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Intro Music: Vigilante - Cross Dog

Artwork by Zo at Studio Bonjourhi

Sources and further reading:

https://readthecatch.ca/this-isnt-canadas-land-ft-karyn-pugliese-the-north-state-podcast

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I gave a small, intimate presentation to a reading group in western Massachusetts after coordinating with one of their organizers. Graciously, they allowed me to record, so now you get to hear it here. This talk is more of a general overview about perception of news, which resources are best to cultivate a critical news eye, a critical examination of two events covered by the news, an overview of how settler-colonialism seeps into news and a brief alternate history of progressive journalism.This episode's photo is the one I presented at the end of my talk, just edited with "The North State" on it.

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Intro Music: Vigilante - Cross Dog

Artwork by Zo at Studio Bonjourhi

Sources and further reading:

https://readthecatch.ca/

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