What is Canadian content if Canada has no identity, and AI is creating art?

The Liberal’s creation and mishandling of multiple other crises has cancelled their capacity to consider emerging issues.

One of the under-discussed tragedies of Canada's multiple current (and preventable) crises - soaring rents, crime waves, and unaffordable food - is that they have paralyzed Canada's federal government when considering other emerging social questions.

One such example showed parts of itself in an unlikely venue - a recent electronic dance festival.

Just before the beat dropped on a song by electronic dance musician Anyma, and Canadian experimental musician Clare Boucher, aka Grimes, the latter sang the titular lyrics: "Welcome to the opera." In this song, Grimes sang in an unsettling electronic melange that is equal parts siren song, dominatrix command, and machine gun fire. As Grimes floated suspended on cables while garbed in an ethereal white outfit, a hypnotic, massive, robot-like angel projection focused its attention on her, and the questions the song asks of tens of thousands in the nighttime concert becomes more apparent. Just whose opera, exactly, is it? Who is observing, and who is performing? Who is creating, and who is consuming?

Given that much of Grimes's recent work focuses on artificial intelligence (AI), she explored with her art concepts that the government should probably be thinking about with policy. Granted, questions like what will come of humanity as AI continues to meet and exceed human capacity aren't the fodder for mainstream politics yet, but it is becoming so for an expanding cadre of artists. Grimes' recent single, "I Wanna Be Software," may be a bit on the nose, but it summarizes themes many tech optimists - including Elon Musk, the father of her three children - have touched upon in recent months. The mass deployment of large language model-based generative artificial intelligence has impacted virtually every industry and trade, including art and will soon disrupt society in overt ways.

This change poses big, messy questions for governments, and again, Canada's present federal government is ill-prepared to address them.

Carrying forward with the example of the challenge of AI disrupting art, some artists, like Grimes, have embraced change. Earlier this year, she released an open-sourced version of her voice for creators to use in their songs, asking for half the royalties of any income they generate with the output. 

But not every artist has adopted this "adapt or perish" posture. Some have called for legal and government intervention in the matter. Last year, an AI-generated song that used the voices of Canadian superstar musicians Drake and The Weeknd without their consent went viral before being pulled off of streaming services. The New York Times launched a lawsuit against AI giant OpenAI, claiming that their large language models had been trained by using their articles without consent. And just last week, Canadian Artist's Representation - a lobby group - published a comprehensive position paper with various asks to the government to limit the impact of AI on their crafts. This paper outlines a litany of issues for which the government seemingly has no posture, ranging from intellectual property ownership, labour issues, and remuneration.

But the Canadian federal Liberal's ability to grapple with the question of what the role of the state is in these instances - or, in some cases, if there is one at all - is questionable due to problems of their own making. The first being that shortly after taking office, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared Canada as the world's first "post-national" country, saying there was "no core identity, no mainstream in Canada." Mr. Trudeau has exemplified this belief in his government's ever-changing foreign policy positions, choosing to address (or ignore) global issues from a "wherever the wind blows" posture instead of a firm vision of what is in the national interest. This approach is the logical conclusion of Trudeau's so-called post-nationalism; that is, if there is no national identity, there cannot be national interests to defend. 

But this posture affects the creation of Canadian art - be it literature, food, images, music, etc - too. It's easy to see how Mr. Trudeau's post-nationalism creates problems for Canadian creators when the stance is overlaid onto the long-fought-over concept of "Canadian content" - a term the Liberals have co-opted into becoming synonymous with the defence of rent-seeking policies that benefit certain lobby groups over others. Because, as with foreign policy, when the concept of post-nationalism is carried into practice, if there is no national identity in Canada, then how can there be content that reflects or explores the condition of the same?

Even before questions arose about the impact of AI on Canadian artists, Mr. Trudeau had already run afoul of this point. Controversial bills C-11 and C-18 proved his government's preference for attempting to keep Canadian content creators from adapting to the digital revolution of the last three decades by imposing a mix of ill-thought-out regulations that censored and created barriers to entry for Canadians into new mediums. These bills were never about protecting Canadian content (in fact, the federal Liberals have perennially struggled to define the term). Rather, they were designed to allow failing Canadian oligopolies in broadcasting and print journalism to artificially cling to the illusion of profitability for a few more months. 

But now, as the world rushes forward to the emergence of artificial generative AI, the futility and danger of these bills have become even more evident. Beyond the traditional (and valid) questions about how Canadian content creators will stay afloat during this disruption, there are more esoteric issues to be considered. For instance, if art is a reflection and exploration of the human condition, and another form of sentience (AI) is now creating art, then how will the humans of Canada tell their stories, provoke questions about the future, or define what it means to be Canadian? How will experiences that define what it means to be human - including the production and experience of art - be disrupted? 

But those reading this piece - particularly those living in Canada - might pause here and think, "That's all well and good, but I'm struggling to keep a roof over my head and buy groceries right now. Fix those things first". 

To reemphasize, that's perhaps Mr. Trudeau's biggest failing as our country begins to address challenges like AI disruption - the cost of living crisis he has presided over has unnecessarily pulled the country into debates over issues that have never been so problematic. Given that the capacity of any government to address issues is never infinite and that Mr. Trudeau hasn't been particularly good at managing the basics, the question of how - or even if - the Trudeau Liberals will turn their attention to the questions posed by AI to Canadian creators remains a mystery. The tragedy of this situation is that a once-wealthy, pluralistic country like Canada should have been leading this discussion on a global level. 

But alas.

One thing is sure. That leadership (skill? morality?) vacuum doesn't absolve our country from considering these questions. While there's still time to do so, change is occurring so fast that inaction risks having them answered for us - either by other nations, corporations, or by AI itself. 

But again, the era of non-human art arrived just as the Liberals spent a decade selling post-nationalism, regulating the hell out of human Canadian artists, and limiting its capacity to do anything other than give platitudes to major crises. 

Way to go, heroes. Our coming AI overlords thank you for your service.