The Canadian Press – Oct 30, 2023 / 10:35 am | Story: 454675

The Associated Press – Oct 30, 2023 / 9:32 am | Story: 454658

Photo: The Canadian Press

President Joe Biden on Monday will sign a sweeping executive order to guide the development of artificial intelligence — requiring industry to develop safety and security standards, introducing new consumer protections and giving federal agencies an extensive to-do list to oversee the rapidly progressing technology.

The order reflects the government’s effort to shape how AI evolves in a way that can maximize its possibilities and contain its perils. AI has been a source of deep personal interest for Biden, with its potential to affect the economy and national security.

White House chief of staff Jeff Zients recalled Biden giving his staff a directive to move with urgency on the issue, having considered the technology a top priority.

“We can’t move at a normal government pace,” Zients said the Democratic president told him. “We have to move as fast, if not faster than the technology itself.”

In Biden’s view, the government was late to address the risks of social media and now U.S. youth are grappling with related mental health issues. AI has the positive ability to accelerate cancer research, model the impacts of climate change, boost economic output and improve government services among other benefits. But it could also warp basic notions of truth with false images, deepen racial and social inequalities and provide a tool to scammers and criminals.

The order builds on voluntary commitments already made by technology companies. It’s part of a broader strategy that administration officials say also includes congressional legislation and international diplomacy, a sign of the disruptions already caused by the introduction of new AI tools such as ChatGPT that can generate new text, images and sounds.

Using the Defense Production Act, the order will require leading AI developers to share safety test results and other information with the government. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is to create standards to ensure AI tools are safe and secure before public release.

The Commerce Department is to issue guidance to label and watermark AI-generated content to help differentiate between authentic interactions and those generated by software. The order also touches on matters of privacy, civil rights, consumer protections, scientific research and worker rights.

An administration official who previewed the order on a Sunday call with reporters said the to-do lists within the order will be implemented and fulfilled over the range of 90 days to 365 days, with the safety and security items facing the earliest deadlines. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, as required by the White House.

Last Thursday, Biden gathered his aides in the Oval Office to review and finalize the executive order, a 30-minute meeting that stretched to 70 minutes, despite other pressing matters including the mass shooting in Maine, the Israel-Hamas war and the selection of a new House speaker.

Biden was profoundly curious about the technology in the months of meetings that led up to drafting the order. His science advisory council focused on AI at two meetings and his Cabinet discussed it at two meetings. The president also pressed tech executives and civil society advocates about the technology’s capabilities at multiple gatherings.

“He was as impressed and alarmed as anyone,” deputy White House chief of staff Bruce Reed said in an interview. “He saw fake AI images of himself, of his dog. He saw how it can make bad poetry. And he’s seen and heard the incredible and terrifying technology of voice cloning, which can take three seconds of your voice and turn it into an entire fake conversation.”

The possibility of false images and sounds led the president to prioritize the labeling and watermarking of anything produced by AI. Biden also wanted to thwart the risk of older Americans getting a phone call from someone who sounded like a loved one, only to be scammed by an AI tool.

Meetings could go beyond schedule, with Biden telling civil society advocates in a ballroom of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel in June: “This is important. Take as long as you need.”

The president also talked with scientists and saw the upside that AI created if harnessed for good. He listened to a Nobel Prize-winning physicist talk about how AI could explain the origins of the universe. Another scientist showed how AI could model extreme weather like 100-year floods, as the past data used to assess these events has lost its accuracy because of climate change.

The issue of AI was seemingly inescapable for Biden. At Camp David one weekend, he relaxed by watching the Tom Cruise film “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.” The film’s villain is a sentient and rogue AI known as “the Entity” that sinks a submarine and kills its crew in the movie’s opening minutes.

“If he hadn’t already been concerned about what could go wrong with AI before that movie, he saw plenty more to worry about,” said Reed, who watched the film with the president.

With Congress still in the early stages of debating AI safeguards, Biden’s order stakes out a U.S. perspective as countries around the world race to establish their own guidelines.

After more than two years of deliberation, the European Union is putting the final touches on a comprehensive set of regulations that targets the riskiest applications for the technology. China, a key AI rival to the U.S., has also set some rules.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also hopes to carve out a prominent role for Britain as an AI safety hub at a summit this week that Vice President Kamala Harris plans to attend. And on Monday, officials from the Group of Seven major industrial nations agreed to a set of AI safety principles and a voluntary code of conduct for AI developers.

The U.S., particularly its West Coast, is home to many of the leading developers of cutting-edge AI technology, including tech giants Google, Meta and Microsoft and AI-focused startups such as OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. The White House took advantage of that industry weight earlier this year when it secured commitments from those companies to implement safety mechanisms as they build new AI models.

But the White House also faced significant pressure from Democratic allies, including labor and civil rights groups, to make sure its policies reflected their concerns about AI’s real-world harms.

The American Civil Liberties Union is among the groups that met with the White House to try to ensure “we’re holding the tech industry and tech billionaires accountable” so that algorithmic tools “work for all of us and not just a few,” said ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU’s racial justice program.

Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a former Biden administration official who helped craft principles for approaching AI, said one of the biggest challenges within the federal government has been what to do about law enforcement’s use of AI tools, including at U.S. borders.

“These are all places where we know that the use of automation is very problematic, with facial recognition, drone technology,” Venkatasubramanian said. Facial recognition technology has been shown to perform unevenly across racial groups, and has been tied to mistaken arrests.

Digital rights advocate Alexandra Reeve Givens, president of the Center for Democracy & Technology, said she was pleased that the Biden administration focused on both the emergent risks of new AI systems and “the many ways in which AI systems are already impacting people’s rights” in workplaces, housing, education and administering government benefits.

Andrew Hughes / Squamish Chief – Oct 30, 2023 / 7:11 am | Story: 454646

Photo: Glacier Media

In the last couple of weeks, Woodfibre LNG has been hosting virtual reality viewings of what the liquefied gas natural gas export facility will look like on the ground when complete.

On Wednesday, Oct. 18 and Thursday, Oct. 26, WLNG hosted 15 to 20-minute sessions at Executive Suites Hotel with the VR tech for those interested in learning more about the facility.

Glacier Media attended one session and could see the compressor station, flare, floating storage and other aspects at the site.

The technology allowed the user to see it from a ground-level point of view, but also have a look from above. The user could move throughout the site relatively easily. Additionally, several WLNG employees were on hand to point out different aspects of the site and explain additional details.

If local residents missed these two sessions, a spokesperson from WLNG said the company would be having future sessions with the technology, likely in early 2024. 

In July 2023, representatives from WLNG took media members on a site tour on the western shore of Átl’ka7tsem Howe Sound. While there, the representatives explained how it would look while crews were busy preparing the land for the future export facility.

Since then District of Squamish staff have relayed some information to council about the progress of the facility, which was most recently discussed at the Oct. 17 regular business meeting. It is expected that the temporary use permit application for the floating worker accommodation (floatel) will be presented to council in the coming months along with a public hearing.

For more information about the liquefied natural gas export facility, visit woodfibrelng.ca. 

Video shot by Jayne Czarnocki.

The Associated Press – Oct 30, 2023 / 6:56 am | Story: 454630

Photo: The Canadian Press

UPDATE: 6:55 a.m.

General Motors and the United Auto Workers union reach a tentative contract agreement, according to an AP source.

The deal follows the pattern set with Ford last week and Jeep maker Stellantis over the weekend.

Those deals will last four years and eight months and include 25% general pay raises and cost of living adjustments. Combined they bring the wage increase to over 30% over the four year and eight month life of the contract.

The person briefed on the matter, who didn’t want to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly aid the deal, was to be announced early Monday.

---

ORIGINAL: 6:10 a.m.

Pressure is rising on General Motors as the lone holdout in a strike targeting all three big Detroit automakers after a tentative contract agreement with Jeep maker Stellantis was reached with the United Auto Workers union over the weekend.

The UAW reached a tentative agreement last week with Ford and it wasted no time in hitting GM where it hurts financially as the strike enters its seventh week.

Nearly 4,000 unionized workers on Saturday walked out of GM’s largest North American plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, hours after the deal with Stellantis was announced. They join about 14,000 GM workers already striking at factories in Texas, Michigan and Missouri.

Spring Hill produces the engines for vehicles assembled at nine plants as far afield as Mexico, including Silverado and Sierra pickups. It’s a big money maker for GM that amplifies the company’s financial pain after workers walked off the job last week in Arlington, Texas, where full-size SUVs including the Tahoe and Suburban are produced. Vehicles assembled at the Spring Hill plant now joining the strike include the electric Cadillac Lyriq, GMC Acadia and Cadillac crossover SUVs.

“The Spring Hill walkout affects so much of GM’s production that the company is likely to settle quickly or close down most production,” said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business professor. The union wants to wrap negotiations with all three automakers so “Ford and Stellantis workers don’t vote down (their) tentative agreements because they want to see what GM workers get.”

The Stellantis deal mirrors one reached last week with Ford, and saves jobs at several plants, the UAW said.

Presidents of the Ford union locals voted unanimously in Detroit on Sunday to endorse that tentative contract after UAW President Shawn Fain explained its details, the union tweeted.

As he explained the particulars to the full membership in a later livestream, Fain, along with Chuck Browning, the UAW vice president, said the deal represents a “historical inflection point” for reviving union power in an America where “we were being left behind by an economy that only works for the billionaire class.”

“UAW members at Ford will receive more in straight general wage increases over the next 4 1/2 years than we have over the last 22 years combined,” Browning said.

Fain called the deal “a turning point in the class war that has been raging in this country for the past 40 years.”

The Ford and Stellantis pacts, which would run until April 30, 2028, include 25% in general wage increases for top assembly plant workers, with 11% coming once the deal is ratified.

The Ford agreement revives cost-of-living adjustments that the UAW agreed to suspend in 2009 during the Great Recession.

Talks continued over the weekend with GM.

At Stellantis, workers get cost-of-living pay that would bring raises to a compounded 33%, with top assembly plant workers making more than $42 per hour. Top-scale workers there now make around $31 per hour.

Gordon, the University of Michigan professor, said the Stellantis deal “shows that the car companies feel they are at the mercy of the UAW, that the UAW is not going to give any mercy.”

Starting wages for new Stellantis hires will rise 67% including cost-of-living adjustments to over $30 per hour. Temporary workers will get raises of more than 165%, while workers at parts centers will get an immediate 76% increase if the contract is ratified.

Like the Ford agreement, it will take just three years for new workers to get to the top of the assembly pay scale, the union said. Similarly, the union won the right to strike over plant closures.

Bruce Baumhower, president of the local union at a large Stellantis Jeep factory in Toledo, Ohio, that had been on strike since September, said he expected workers to vote to approve the deal because of pay raises including the immediate 11% raise on ratification. “It’s a historic agreement as far as I’m concerned.”

Stellantis is not out of the woods, however.

Overnight, 8,200 Stellantis workers in Canada represented by a different union, Unifor, walked off the job. General Motors workers in Canada have already voted to ratify a three-year contract agreement with the company.

“Negotiations between Unifor and Stellantis continue with progress being made. Stay tuned for further updates,” Unifor said in a prepared statement.

The UAW began targeted strikes against all three automakers on Sept. 15 after its contracts with the companies expired. At the peak, about 46,000 UAW workers were on strike — about one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at all three companies.

Shares of major automakers were flat before the opening bell Monday.

Tom Krisher And Haleluya Hadero, The Associated Press – Oct 28, 2023 / 2:30 pm | Story: 454432

Photo: The Canadian Press

Jeep maker Stellantis has reached a tentative contract agreement with the United Auto Workers union that follows a template set earlier this week by Ford, two people with knowledge of the negotiations said Saturday.

The deal, which still has to be ratified by members, leaves only General Motors without a contract with the union. The agreement could end a six-week strike by more than 14,000 workers at Stellantis assembly plants in Michigan and Ohio, and at parts warehouses across the nation.

Like workers at Ford, the strikers at Stellantis are expected to take down their picket lines and start returning to work in the coming days, before 43,000 union members vote.

The people, who asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the talks, said most of the main points of the deal at Ford will carry over to Stellantis.

The Ford pact includes 25% in general wage increases over the next 4 1/2 years for top assembly plant workers, with 11% coming once the deal is ratified. Workers also will get cost-of-living pay that would bring the raises to over 30%, with top assembly plant workers making more than $40 per hour. At Stellantis, top-scale workers now make around $31 per hour.

Like the Ford contract, the Stellantis deal would run through April 30, 2028.

The deal is also expected to include some news about a now-idled factory in Belvidere, Illinois, which the company had planned to close.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, who represents Belvidere in Congress, said he’s received indications that electric vehicles will be produced at the site, which will be expanded to include a new battery factory. Stellantis had indefinitely shut down the plant in the spring and laid off the 1,350 employees who worked there.

Foster said he’s been working with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office and other state and local officials to reopen the facility. State officials are expected to offer the company an incentive package as part of the deal.

Bruce Baumhower, president of the local union at a large Stellantis Jeep factory in Toledo, Ohio, that has been on strike since September, said he expects workers will vote to approve the deal because of the pay raises above 30% and a large raise immediately.

“Eleven percent is right on the hood,” he said. “It’s a historic agreement as far as I’m concerned.”

Some union members have been complaining that Fain promised 40% raises to match what he said was given to company CEOs, but Baumhower said that was UAW President Shawn Fain’s opening bid.

“Anybody who knows anything about negotiations, you always start out much higher than you think is realistic to get,” he said.

Jermaine Antwine and other Stellantis workers picketing outside the automaker’s Sterling Heights, Michigan, were excited Saturday after hearing news of a tentative deal.

“Anytime you reach a tentative agreement, it’s a good thing,” said Antwine, 48, of Pontiac, Michigan. “It shows both sides have come to a mutual agreement somewhere within the numbers they started with.”

“Ultimately, the numbers they did come to agree with is what the UAW wanted,” said Antwine, who has spent 24 years with the automaker and is a team leader in materials at the Sterling Heights plant.

Talks were under way with General Motors on Saturday in an effort to reach a similar agreement. Over 14,000 workers at GM remain on strike at factories in Texas, Michigan and Missouri.

The union began targeted strikes against all three automakers on Sept. 15 after its contracts with the companies expired.

The union and Stellantis went into intense negotiations on Thursday, the day after the Ford deal was announced, and finalized the agreement on Saturday.

UAW workers began their targeted strikes with one assembly plant from each company. The strikes were expanded on Sept. 22, adding 38 GM and Stellantis parts warehouses. Assembly plants from Ford and GM were added the week after that, and then the union hit Ford hard, taking down the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, the company’s largest and most profitable factory.

At the peak, about 46,000 workers were on strike against all three companies, about one-third of the union’s 146,000 members at the Detroit three. Automakers laid off several thousand more as parts shortages cascaded through their manufacturing systems.

Under the Ford deal, workers with pensions also will see small increases when they retire, and those hired after 2007 with 401(k) plans will get large increases. For the first time, the union will have the right to go on strike over company plans to close factories. Temporary workers also will get large raises, and Ford agreed to shorten to three years the time it takes for new hires to reach the top of the pay scale.

Other union leaders who followed more aggressive bargaining strategies in recent months have also secured pay hikes and other benefits for their members. Last month, the union representing Hollywood writers called off a nearly five-month strike after scoring some wins in compensation, length of employment and other areas. This summer, the Teamsters also secured new pay hikes and benefits for unionized UPS workers after threatening a nationwide strike at the delivery company.

The Canadian Press – Oct 27, 2023 / 6:35 pm | Story: 454354

Federal Housing Minister Sean Fraser says a search is underway for a new CEO of Canada’s housing agency after current leader Romy Bowers has said she’s stepping down.

Fraser says in a news release that Bowers will be leaving the role in December to take a job as director of the office of risk management at the International Monetary Fund.

Bowers took on the role as head of CMHC in April 2021. Before that, she was chief risk officer at the agency.

The government says that CMHC chief financial officer Michel Tremblay will step into the role of CEO until it can conduct an “open, transparent, and merit-based” selection process to find a replacement for Bowers.

Her departure comes as Canada’s housing affordability crisis worsens under the weight of high interest rate, inflation, and a deep mismatch between supply and demand.

The search for a new leader of the federal housing agency comes as the government works to select people for various CMHC board of director positions.