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Canada is a force in AI research. So why can’t we commercialize it?

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OTTAWA – It has impressive research bench strength. It has billions of federal dollars for the taking. It’s kind of a nice place to live.

But when it comes to turning knowledge of artificial intelligence into companies, products and investment, Canada is lagging behind — and, some experts argue, actively shooting itself in the foot.

Why give up all that brain power to Silicon Valley?

That was a major line of questioning as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke recently with tech journalists on a niche New York Times podcast.

“We’re proud of Canada’s early role in developing AI,” Trudeau said on Hard Fork, noting that many breakthroughs have happened because Canadian scientists are well-funded.

In 2017, Canada became the first country to have a national AI strategy. It launched a second phase five years later, allocating $443 million to connect research capacity with programs aimed at enabling commercialization.

This year’s federal budget included an additional $2.4-billion investment in AI. And the government has boasted that Canada has 10 per cent of “the world’s top-tier AI researchers, the second most in the world.”

Among them are two so-called godfathers of AI.

But Ottawa is “fighting to make sure we keep our skin in the game,” Trudeau told the podcast hosts.

He made the pitch, saying Canada has many of the ingredients it needs: among other things, clean energy, a good quality of life for workers and government programs to encourage the sector.

In spite of that, Canada hasn’t always been “great at commercializing,” Trudeau conceded.

More than that, Canadians have “fallen far behind,” argued Benjamin Bergen, president of the Council of Canadian Innovators, which represents the tech sector.

The government spent “a tremendous amount on the talent side of the equation,” he said recently, but not on converting it “into building companies.”

Bergen said the government has “institutionalized the transfer of our AI intellectual property to foreign firms.”

The government’s 2022 strategy update promised that the country’s three AI institutes are “helping to translate research in artificial intelligence into commercial applications and growing the capacity of businesses to adopt these new technologies.”

But Bergen argued an AI strategy focused on commercialization must start with Canada owning its own IP. “You cannot commercialize what you don’t own.”

Intellectual property lawyer Jim Hinton has been trying to quantify that problem.

And the numbers show “a train wreck I’ve been watching happen in slow motion,” he said.

About three-quarters of patents produced by researchers who work for Toronto’s Vector Institute and Montreal’s Mila leave the country, and most of these are in the hands of Big Tech, Hinton’s research has found.

Another 18 per cent of the 244 patents he tracked — 198 from Vector and 46 from Mila — are now owned by North American academic institutions.

Just seven per cent are held in the Canadian private sector.

Of the foreign-owned patents, the largest number, 65, went to Uber, while 35 landed with the Walt Disney Company. Nvidia, which recently displaced Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company, got 34.

IBM ended up with 15 and Google with 12. A handful of the patents were co-owned.

Foreign companies benefit from Canada’s public funding, Hinton argued, and there are “no guardrails put on the ability for these foreign companies to basically pillage Canada’s really good AI invention.”

Researchers can work at the AI institutes and foreign tech companies at the same time, Hinton said, charging that this is what allows the tech giants to take advantage.

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, which co-ordinates the government’s AI strategy, pushed back strongly on that assertion.

Executive director Elissa Strome said a “small number of our researchers” have part-time employment in the private sector.

“Those private-sector organizations own the rights to the IP that is generated by those researchers,” she said, but only when they’re on the clock for those companies.

Strome said it’s long-standing practice in Canadian research “that there are relationships around contract research with industry,” and “a really strong firewall” is in place between IP generated via public funds at the AI institutes and that which is generated through private funds.

She said Hinton’s statistic on patents was inaccurate, but did not provide data to refute his findings.

She also argued that patents are not a good measure of commercialization, and “it’s the people that we’re training in the AI ecosystem that actually hold the greatest value in AI, not patents.”

When it comes to sponsorship agreements at Toronto’s Vector, any IP created at the institute “belongs to Vector,” a spokesperson said, adding it is not the primary employer for most of its researchers.

If academics don’t have an opportunity to work for companies, they’re more likely to leave altogether, Montreal’s Mila said in a statement. It said the three institutes have turned around a “massive brain drain in AI in Canada” that existed prior to 2017.

The multi-billion-dollar investment in this year’s budget seeks to further protect against that brain drain by beefing up Canadian infrastructure and computing power.

The envelope includes a “relatively small” amount of money to help Canadian companies scale up, noted Paul Samson, president of the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Overall, the government is “doing the right thing” by ensuring that’s part of the equation, he said.

But people in the tech sector are skeptical. Bergen said companies were given little time to provide input.

“The government already had a top-down strategy that it wanted to implement … and didn’t really care what CEOs and leaders of domestic firms were actually needing in order to be successful,” he said.

Nicole Janssen, co-CEO of AI company AltaML, raised the concern that the Canadian government might end up simply throwing money at American firms to move north.

“What I’m trying to figure out is how the government thinks they’re going to spend $2 billion on building computers without just handing that $2 billion to Microsoft,” Janssen said.

The budget said the money would go towards both access to computational power and developing AI infrastructure that is Canadian-owned and located in Canada.

A spokesperson for Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne said more details would be provided in the coming weeks.

Companies like Microsoft and Nvidia are already looking to Canada as a place to build computing infrastructure, Janssen said, due to factors like climate and relative political stability.

“We don’t need to do anything to attract them.”

A better approach, Janssen said, would see the government helping Canadian firms adopt AI more quickly — a gap her company has been trying to help fill.

It takes AltaML an average of 18 months to start building an AI product in Canada, she said, compared to four months in the United States.

“We definitely do not have the ecosystem of companies that you would expect for the amount of talent that we have,” she said.

There’s real clout at Canada’s AI institutes, with veterans Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton heading up Mila and Vector, respectively.

They and other elite researchers have “attracted students from all over the world to come study under them,” said Janssen, and that’s a big advantage for Canada, especially if it wants, as Trudeau said on the podcast, to lead in developing a more democratic AI.

The prime minister said one of his biggest preoccupations is maximizing “the chance that it actually leads to better outcomes and better lives for everyone” instead of only benefiting those “with the deepest pockets.”

Canada could be a leader in responsible AI, Janssen said.

“That is a title that is up for grabs,” she said. “And no one has grabbed it yet.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 26, 2024.

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NASA astronauts won’t say which one of them got sick after almost eight months in space

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Three NASA astronauts whose prolonged space station mission ended with a trip to the hospital last month declined to say Friday which one of them was sick.

Astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps publicly discussed their spaceflight for the first time since returning from the International Space Station on Oct. 25. They spent nearly eight months in orbit, longer than expected because of all the trouble with Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule and rough weather, including Hurricane Milton.

Soon after their SpaceX capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, the three were taken to a hospital in nearby Pensacola along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who launched with them back in March.

One of the Americans ended up spending the night there for an undisclosed “medical issue.” NASA declined to say who was hospitalized or why, citing medical privacy.

When asked at Friday’s news conference which one had been sick, the astronauts refused to comment. Barratt, a doctor who specializes in space medicine, declined to even describe the symptoms that the unidentified astronaut had.

“Spaceflight is still something we don’t fully understand. We’re finding things that we don’t expect sometimes. This was one of those times and we’re still piecing things together on this,” said Barratt, the only member of the crew who had flown in space before.

Epps said everyone is different in how they respond to space — and gravity.

“That’s the part that you can’t predict,” she said, adding, “Every day is better than the day before.”

Dominick said little things like sitting comfortably in a hard chair took several days to get used to once he returned. He said he didn’t use the treadmill at all during his time in space, as part of an experiment to see what equipment might be pared on a long trip to Mars. The first time he walked was when he got out of the capsule.

The two astronauts who served as test pilots for Boeing’s Starliner — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — will remain at the space station until February, flying back with SpaceX. Starliner returned empty in September.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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43 monkeys remain on the run from South Carolina lab. CEO thinks they’re having an adventure

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Forty-three monkeys bred for medical research that escaped a compound in South Carolina have been spotted in the woods near the site and workers are using food to try to recapture them, authorities said Friday.

The Rhesus macaques made a break for it Wednesday after an employee at the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee didn’t fully lock a door as she fed and checked on them, officials said.

“They are very social monkeys and they travel in groups, so when the first couple go out the door the others tend to just follow right along,” Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard told CBS News.

Westergaard said his main goal is to have the monkeys returned safely with no other problems. “I think they are having an adventure,” he said.

The monkeys on Friday were exploring the outer fence of the Alpha Genesis compound and are cooing at the monkeys inside, police said in a statement.

“The primates are exhibiting calm and playful behavior, which is a positive indication,” the police statement said, adding company workers are closely watching the monkeys while keeping their distance as they work to safely recapture them.

The monkeys are about the size of a cat. They are all females weighing about 7 pounds (3 kilograms).

Alpha Genesis, federal health officials and police all said the monkeys pose no risk to public health. The facility breeds the monkeys to sell to medical and other researchers.

“They are not infected with any disease whatsoever. They are harmless and a little skittish,” Yemassee Police Chief Gregory Alexander said Thursday.

Authorities still recommend that people who live near the compound about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) from downtown Yemassee shut their windows and doors and call 911 if they see the monkeys. Approaching them could make them more skittish and harder to capture, officials said.

Eve Cooper, a biology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who has studied rhesus macaques, said the animals have the potential to be dangerous and urged people to keep their distance.

Rhesus macaques monkeys can be aggressive. And some carry the herpes B virus, which can be fatal to humans, Cooper said.

However, Alpha Genesis states on its website that it specializes in pathogen-free primates. Cooper noted that there are pathogen-free populations of rhesus macaques that have been quarantined and tested.

“I would give them a wide berth,” Cooper said. “They’re unpredictable animals. And they can behave quite aggressively when they’re afraid.”

Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide at its compound about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Savannah, Georgia, according to its website.

Locally, it is known as “the monkey farm.” And there is more amusement than panic around Yemassee and its population of about 1,100 just off Interstate 95 about 2 miles from Auldbrass Plantation, a Frank Lloyd Wright house designed in the 1930s.

There have been escapes before, but the monkeys haven’t caused problems, said William McCoy, who owns Lowcountry Horology, a clock and watch repair shop.

“They normally come home because that’s where the food is,” he said.

McCoy has lived in Yemassee for about two years and while he plans to stay away from the monkeys, he has his own light-hearted plan to get them back.

“I’m stocking up bananas, maybe they’ll show up,” McCoy said.

The Alpha Genesis compound is regularly inspected by federal officials.

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Alpha Genesis $12,600 in part after officials said 26 primates escaped from the Yemassee facility in 2014 and an additional 19 got out in 2016.

The company’s fine was also issued because of individual monkey escapes as well as the killing of one monkey by others when it was placed in the wrong social group, according to a report from the USDA.

The group Stop Animal Exploitation Now sent a letter Thursday to the USDA asking the agency to immediately send an inspector to the Alpha Genesis facility, conduct a thorough investigation and treat them as a repeated violator. The group was involved in the 2018 fine against the company.

“The clear carelessness which allowed these 40 monkeys to escape endangered not only the safety of the animals, but also put the residents of South Carolina at risk,” wrote Michael Budkie, executive director of the group.

The USDA, which has inspected the compound 10 times since 2020, didn’t immediately respond to the letter.

The facility’s most recent federal inspection in May showed there were about 6,700 primates on site and no issues.

In a 2022 review, federal veterinarians reported two animals died when their fingers were trapped in structures and they were exposed to harsh weather. They also found cages weren’t adequately secure. Inspectors said criminal charges, civil penalties or other sanctions could follow if the problems weren’t fixed.

Since then, Alpha Genesis has undergone six inspections with minor problems reported only once.

In January 2023, the USDA said temperatures were out of the 45 to 85 degree Fahrenheit (7.2 to 29.5 degree Celsius) required range at some of the compound’s monkey cages. The inspection found moldy food in one bin, sharp edges on a gate that could cut an animal and sludge, food waste, used medical supplies, mechanical equipment, and general construction debris on the grounds.

Supporters of medical research involving nonhuman primates said they are critical to lifesaving medical advances like creating vaccines against COVID-19 because of their similarities to people. Keeping a domestic supply of the animals is critical to prevent shortages for U.S. researchers.

Humans have been using the rhesus macaque for scientific research since the late 1800s. Scientists believe that rhesus macaques and humans split from a common ancestor about 25 million years ago and share about 93% of the same DNA.

These monkeys have been launched into space on V2 rockets, used for AIDS research, had their genome mapped and made stars of their own reality television show. They were in such high demand in the early 2000s that a shortage led to scientists paying up to $10,000 per animal.

Outside of rats and mice, rhesus macaques are one of the most studied animals on the planet, said Dario Maestripieri, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago who wrote the 2007 book “Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World.”

The animals are very family oriented, siding with relatives when fights break out. And they’re adept at building political alliances in the face of threats from other monkeys. But they can be painful to watch. Monkeys with lower status in the hierarchy live in a constant state of fear and intimidation, Maestripieri said.

“In some ways, they kind of represent some of the worst aspects of human nature,” Maestripieri said.

___

Lovan reported from Louisville, Kentucky, and Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.



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Freeland says she’s ready to deal with Trump |

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Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks with reporters after chairing a special cabinet committee working on Canada’s plan to deal with the incoming Donald Trump administration. Freeland says she’s stood up for Canadian interests in the past and is ready to go another round. (Nov. 8, 2024)



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