Rempel Garner: For youth, AI is making immigration cuts even more urgent.

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see if the annual levels plans makes any reference to expected impacts of AI. Valid concerns and need for further thinking about appropriate policy responses, shorter and longer-term:

…So at writing, the only consensus on what skills will make someone employable in a five to ten year period, particularly in white collar jobs, are advanced critical thinking and problem solving ability acquired through decades of senior level managerial and product creation experience. So the question for anyone without those skills – read, youth – is, how can someone acquire those skills if AI is taking away entry level research and writing jobs? And how can they do that while competing with hundreds of thousands of non-permanent foreign workers?

While many parts of that question may remain without clear answers (e.g. whether current public investments in existing modalities of education make sense), there are some that are much more obvious. Where Canadian employers do have a need for entry level labour, those jobs should not be filled by non-Canadians unless under extremely exceptional circumstances, so that Canadian youth can gain skills needed to survive in a labour market where they’re competing against AI for work.

And translating that principle into action means that the Liberal government must (contrary to Coyne’s column) immediately and massively curtail the allowance of temporary foreign labour to continue to suppress Canadian wages and remove opportunity from Canadian youth. It’s clear that they haven’t given the topic much thought. Even their most recent Liberal platform only focused on reskilling mid-career workers, not the fact that AI will likely stymie new entrants to the labour market from ever getting to the mid-career point to begin with. While older Liberals may be assuming that the kids will be alright because they grew up with technology, data suggests AI will disrupt the labour market faster and more profoundly than even offshoring manufacturing did. Given that context, immediately weaning Canadian businesses off their over-reliance on cheap foreign labour seems like a no brainer.

But on that front, Canada’s federal immigration policy, particularly its annual intake targets, fails to account for the anticipated labor market disruptions driven by artificial intelligence. This oversight may have arisen because many of those setting these targets have had the luxury of honing their skills over decades in an economic landscape where life was far more affordable than it is today. Or, because it’s easier to listen to the spin from lobbyists who argue that they have the right to cheap foreign labour than to the concerns of millions of jobless Canadian youth. Nevertheless, the strategy of allowing Canadian youth to languish in this hyper-rapidly evolving and disruptive job market, while admitting hundreds of thousands of temporary low-skilled workers and issuing work permits to an equal number of bogus asylum claimants, demands an urgent and profound rethink.

Indifference to this issue, at best, will likely suppress wages and opportunities as the economy transitions to an AI integrated modality. At worst, it may bring widespread AI precipitated hyper-unemployment to an already unaffordable country, and all the negative social impacts associated with the same: debt, crime, and despair.

So the Liberals can either immediately push their absurdly wide open immigration gates to a much more closed position while they grapple with this labour market disruption out on behalf of Canadians, or pray that Canadians forgive them for failing to do so.

Source: For youth, AI is making immigration cuts even more urgent.

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StatsCan: Recent trends in immigration from Canada to the United States

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

Important study highlighting retention issues for high skilled immigrants to Canada:

….In recent decades, a significant decline in permanent migration from Canada to the United States has been observed. The average number of Canadian-born individuals granted U.S. permanent residency fell by 30% from the late 2000s to the late 2010s. In contrast, the number of U.S.-born immigrants to Canada has increased. Overall, Canada experienced a net loss in the exchange of permanent residents from the early 1990s to the mid-2010s. However, since 2018, the difference in permanent resident flows between the two countries has become relatively small.

Data from U.S. labour certification applications reveal that Canadian temporary workers seeking permanent employment in the United States were highly educated and concentrated in computer, mathematical, architecture and engineering occupations, though the overall educational attainment of these applicants has declined over time. By 2024, foreign-born Canadian citizens made up 60% of all Canadian citizen applicants for U.S. labour certification, and the median wage offers for these positions remained high, though slightly lower than a decade earlier.

The continued movement of highly skilled Canadians—both Canadian-born and foreign-born—into the U.S. labour market has important implications for both countries. For Canada, these findings highlight retention issues for skilled immigrants. In the United States, the influx of highly skilled Canadian workers continues to bolster key sectors, but the overall decline in Canadian immigration suggests tightening competition for global talent.

Source: StatsCan: Recent trends in immigration from Canada to the United States

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Trump Is Building a Machine to Disappear People

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

All too true:

…But how legitimate is it? Third-country deportations often sidestep due process and violate international law, under which it is forbidden for states to deport such people to any place where their life or liberty would be at risk. It is also plainly unethical, imposing additional stress on people who have undergone traumatic journeys and who are then dumped in far-off, unfamiliar places.

Several of the countries slated as deportation destinations have bleak human rights records and are unsafe for all civilians, let alone foreign deportees, who are likely to be targets of abuse and exploitation. In the worst instances, as with U.S. deportees in El Salvador, they can find themselves in jails where the authorities routinely inflict physical and psychological violence on inmates.

These deportation deals also have corrosive consequences for international politics. They encourage smaller, weaker countries to engage in transactional behavior, commodifying human life by trading immigrant bodies for cash, development aid, diplomatic support and international impunity. They may even strengthen the impunity of authoritarian regimes that violate the human rights of their own citizens. In the case of El Salvador, for example, deportees from the United States reportedly included some leaders of the criminal gang MS-13, who were thought to be in a position to expose links between President Nayib Bukele and the gang.

For nearly three-quarters of a century, a network of international instruments, institutions and norms have acted as guardrails, if imperfect ones, to ensure that refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants are treated humanely. Now it seems as though the president is looking to rewrite the rules of this system to one in which people are pawns.

By expanding the practice of forced relocation, Mr. Trump is using migrants as currency in a global network of geopolitical negotiation. His administration is normalizing the use of vulnerable people as bargaining chips to extract better deals with friends and foes alike. He is setting a dangerous precedent for other democratic countries by ignoring the moral and reputational cost of shipping desperate people into terrible conditions. As Mr. Trump works to bring this new paradigm to life, leaders the world over will be watching closely. If he can pull it off, so can they.

Jeff Crisp, an expert on migration and humanitarian issues.

Source: Trump Is Building a Machine to Disappear People

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$68M project to secure, revamp Canada’s asylum system shut down unexpectedly, documents show

2025/07/24 Leave a comment

Complex cross organization IT project. Responded to clear need for common platform across silos, even if only partially successful.

Not convinced by arguments against such projects by advocates as current systems and approaches make asylum system more costly with more complex management and oversight.

Advocates continuing to argue for “more resources” are simply denying reality:

A $68-million project led by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) that was meant to revamp Canada’s outdated asylum system and enhance the integrity of the country’s borders was quietly shut down last year — an “unexpected” move for some in the government because it was only partly completed, internal documents show. 

Now, some critics fear the outcomes that were achieved may be more harmful than beneficial for people seeking protection in Canada.

IRCC’s “asylum interoperability project” began in 2019 and was supposed to wrap up by 2022. It came during a surge of asylum seekers entering Canada, putting pressure on an already struggling system that relied heavily on paper files. Its launch followed calls for major reform.

The main goals of the project was “to transform the asylum system” into a digital one, automate data and create real-time information sharing between three departments — IRCC, Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB).

If these tools are so effective and being implemented, then why do we still have this backlog?- Wei Will Tao, immigration and refugee lawyer

It also hoped to “enhance integrity, security and deterrence within the asylum system,” while improving efficiency and service to claimants, documents show.

It allocated about $48.4 million to IRCC, $15.5 million to CBSA and $3.8 million to the IRB over several years to meet these goals, an internal document shows. IRCC said it had used 75 per cent of its allocated funds.

Through access to information documents, CBC News has learned the project was abandoned in February 2024 after it failed to get another extension from the Department of Finance. 

But just months after prematurely halting this project, then Immigration minister Marc Miller told the House of Commons immigration committee: “I want to reform the system. It’s not working in the way it should.”

At the time, he said Canada’s asylum and refugee system was still struggling due to volume and inefficiency.

According to records obtained by CBC, about 64 per cent of the interoperability project was accomplished. IRCC either scrapped or “deferred” the rest of the tasks to future major IT projects.

“The decision to close the project was unexpected,” reads a 2024 CBSA briefing note.

The latest IRB data shows a backlog of 288,198 pending applications as of last month — a historic high that’s nearly tripled since June 2023, when the interoperability project was well underway.

“The first question is, if these tools are so effective and being implemented, then why do we still have this backlog?” said Wei Will Tao, an immigration and refugee lawyer.

Automation, online portal among goals achieved

All three departments operate their own IT systems, “causing program integrity risks” and delays, a project document reads.

While incrementally rolling out improvements until its shutdown in 2024, the project faced “capacity issues,” “black-out periods” in IRCC’s internal application processing tool Global Case Management System (GCMS), and a “downgrade” in priorities which led to delays past its 2022 finish date, records say.

The project still managed to build an online refugee application process, and automated case creation, data entry and admissibility checks, according to documents. For IRB hearings, the project also allowed more real-time information exchange between departments.

The process to detain and remove people from Canada was also “enhanced,” according to a CBSA briefing note, citing the ability to automatically cancel valid work or study permits when a removal order is issued, among other improvements. 

But there were several wish list items the project couldn’t make happen — like a CBSA officer portal and online applications for pre-removal risk assessments (an application for people facing removal from Canada.)

Another task that was skipped — a function to “view notes associated with a claim in one place,” which would have helped officers’ workflow, CBSA records show.

In a closing note, one government official noted that “the project did deliver on every benefit identified but not all to the depth it aimed to.” 

IRCC declined an interview. The department didn’t specify which tasks it was unable to complete, but said in an email those may be part of future projects. IRCC has hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to digital modernization in the coming years.

Impacts felt, but questions remain

“The actual project itself and the fact that there’s huge funding … that came to us as a bit of a surprise,” said Tao, who’s part of a collective of experts monitoring AI and technological advances in Canada’s immigration system.

Tao said he didn’t “want to deny the positivity” of some digital advancements. But he raised questions around transparency, the kind of information being exchanged between the three departments and how it’s being used by each partner — especially because the IRB is an arms-length, independent tribunal.

“What if there’s information that’s being transmitted behind the scenes that we’re not a party to, or that could implicate our clients’ case without us knowing?” asked Tao, founder of Heron Law Offices in Burnaby, B.C.

Despite multiple followups, the IRB did not respond to CBC’s requests for information. IRCC wrote to CBC that the IRB maintains its adjudicative independence.

“We do have serious concerns about this interoperability — being yes, an efficiency tool and a way for things to be streamlined — … [but] is our ability to contest these systems being altered, or even perhaps barriered, by these tools?” Tao asked.

“Digitization is not the answer,” said Syed Hussan, spokesperson for the Migrant Rights Network. “These so-called streamline mechanisms are actually making life harder for people.”

Hussan said the digital-focused application system has “caused immense havoc” for some people with technological barriers. He also questions the “enormous focus” on sharing private information between agencies and the oversight of that.

“What is framed as a technical step forward is actually a series of policies that make it harder for refugees to gain protection,” said Hussan. “It’s part of a broader turn rightward towards Trump-like policies in the immigration system.”

Hussan said what the system actually needs is more resources for settlement organizations and claimants who need protection.

“Instead there’s actually just mass firing of federal civil servants as well as underfunding of settlement agencies and money being put into these digitization projects — which largely seem to be about streamlining removals rather than ensuring rights,” Hussan said.

Canada enforced more removal orders in the past year than in any other 12-month period since 2019 — 18,048 in the 2024-25 fiscal year, according to CBSA data.

Source: $68M project to secure, revamp Canada’s asylum system shut down unexpectedly, documents show

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Jobs survive, pay and purpose don’t: The quiet risk of workplace AI

2025/07/22 Leave a comment

Interesting and a cause for further consideration of implications:

…As sociologists of work, we see several reasons for concern, even if fears of immediate and widespread AI displacement are potentially overblown. Claims of a “white-collar bloodbath” and “job apocalypse” – that is, “something alarming happening to the job market” – certainly make for attention-grabbing headlines (and, at this stage of the purported advancements, they probably should).

Erosion before displacement

If predictions about future AI capabilities are even partly correct, we may be seeing only the early contours of what lies ahead. Already, signs are emerging that the conditions and perceived value of some white-collar work is shifting. At Amazon, software engineers report that AI tools are accelerating production timelines while reducing time for thoughtful coding and increasing output expectations. According to New York Times reporting, many now spend more time reviewing and debugging machine-generated code than writing their own. The work remains, but its character is changing – less autonomous, more pressure, and arguably less fulfilling.

This shift in work quality may be creating broader economic ripples. Barclays economists have found that workers in AI-exposed roles are experiencing measurably slower wage growth – nearly three-quarters of a percentage point less per year for every 10-point increase in AI exposure. Employers may already be recalibrating the value of these positions, even as hiring continues.

Uneven impacts

Different forms of white-collar work may face vastly different futures under AI, depending on professional autonomy and control over the technology. Consider radiologists, initially seen as vulnerable given AI’s strength in image analysis. Yet, the profession has grown, with AI enabling faster analysis rather than replacement. Crucially, radiologists retain control. They make final diagnoses, communicate with patients and carry legal responsibility. Here, AI complements human expertise in what economists refer to as Jevons Paradox – where technological efficiency increases demand by making services cheaper and more accessible.

Medical transcription offers a more cautionary tale. As AI speech-to-text tools improve, transcriptionists have shifted from producing reports to editing and error detection. In theory, this sounds like higher-skilled oversight work. In practice, it often means scanning AI output under time pressure and reduced job discretion. While jobs such as this one still exist, their perceived value is diminishing. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 5 per cent employment decline between 2023 and 2033 – and given the rapid improvement in transcription models, that estimate may prove conservative.

Adaptation isn’t necessarily promotion

AI will undoubtedly create new roles and opportunities, particularly where human judgment remains essential. But we shouldn’t assume this future will preserve job quality. The story of retail banking offers a sobering lesson: automation first increased the number of teller jobs – but didn’t raise pay. Ultimately, tellers weren’t replaced by machines but by digital banking, shifting many to call centre jobs with less autonomy and lower wages. Even in the absence of widespread job displacement, AI may follow a similar pattern –reshaping many jobs in ways that reduce discretion, increase surveillance and erode its overall value.

There remains considerable debate about how disruptive AI will be. But amid that uncertainty lies a risk of public complacency – or even disengagement from the issue. As Canadians, we need a sustained and open conversation about how these workplace changes are unfolding and where they might lead.

Paul Glavin is an associate professor of sociology at McMaster University. Scott Schieman is professor of sociology and Canada Research Chair at the University of Toronto. Alexander Wilson is a graduate student in sociology at the University of Toronto.

Source: Jobs survive, pay and purpose don’t: The quiet risk of workplace AI

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ICYMI – Gee: A party to celebrate a mistake

2025/07/22 Leave a comment

More on ill-advised naming decisions:

…Sankofa Square is the obscure new name for Yonge-Dundas Square, the one-acre public space at the corner of Yonge and Dundas streets, right across from the Eaton Centre. Sankofa Day, its organizers tell us, is another name for the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.

In 2021, the city government decided to erase the name Dundas from the square bearing his name. It was a time when statues were being toppled and historical figures cancelled in the name of social justice. 

Henry Dundas was a leading British statesman of the Georgian era. His critics say he was responsible for delaying the end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. His defenders say he was a sincere opponent of slavery who orchestrated a tactical delay in parliament to pave the way for eventual abolition.

City councillors brushed aside these complexities and voted to rename the square, though not the street (which would be too expensive). Various new names were kicked around. One suggestion was Lightfoot Square, after the iconic singer who played many times at Massey Hall around the corner. But, no, that would have been too easy.

Instead, the city struck a committee: the Recognition Review Community Advisory Committee, in fact. After what the group that runs the square calls “two years of careful work,” it announced its choice. Yonge-Dundas Square would become Sankofa Square. 

Torontonians were understandably bewildered. They still are. What or who is Sankofa? The square’s website explains that “Sankofa (SAHN-koh-fah) is a Twi word from the Akan Tribe of Ghana that loosely translates to, ‘go back and get it.’” The phrase “encourages learning from the past to inform the future.”

A-ha. Not surprisingly, the name has failed to catch on. Does anybody ever say, “Meet you at Sankofa Square?”

The name has no connection to Toronto or its history. Worse, after the name came out, critics pointed out that the Akan people themselves once kept and traded slaves. Awkward….

Source: A party to celebrate a mistake

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Keller: Trump wants to deport millions. What impact will that have on Canada?

2025/07/22 2 Comments

Legitimate concern:

…Which brings us back to Canada. Over the last two weeks at the main border crossing south of Montreal, more than 1,500 people drove up and asked the Canada Border Services Agency for asylum. Under the STCA, most of those people will likely be quickly returned to the U.S. There are some narrow exemptions, but beyond them, the STCA is clear. It is designed to stop people coming from the U.S. to make an asylum claim. 

The foundation for the STCA is that the U.S. is a “safe” country for refugee claimants. It’s a rule-of-law country, just like Canada, that treats refugee claimants humanely and according to the rule of law, just like Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the STCA on that basis.

But things can change. Look who’s in the White House. Look what he’s doing.

A court challenge arguing that the STCA should be struck down because the U.S. is no longer safe might succeed some day, but not soon. It would take years to work its way through the courts, by which time who knows who will be in the White House, or what U.S. immigration policy will be.

But Mr. Trump has the power to rip up the agreement right now, or ignore it, if he wants to. So far, we’ve seen no evidence of any intent to do that. Nor have we seen signs of wanting to load up buses bound for the Canadian border. The administration is offering people $1,000 to self-deport, but it’s not sending them anywhere in particular.

By 2024, Texas had spent US$148-million busing migrants to blue states. That sounds like a lot of money, until you notice that in the new U.S. budget, there’s US$165-billion for immigration enforcement, including US$75-billion for ICE. 

The Trump administration is putting in place the conditions for a massive forced displacement of people. And we’re the next-door neighbours.

Source: Trump wants to deport millions. What impact will that have on Canada?

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Trump has a welcome message for new citizens. It’s different from past presidents

2025/07/22 Leave a comment

Of note (relatively restrained for him):

Over the past two decades, it’s become a tradition for each president to craft their own speech to welcome new citizens.

These video messages, played at naturalization ceremonies nationwide, are brief but experts in presidential rhetoric say they are important — not only are they meaningful to newly naturalized citizens, but they provide insight on how each president values immigration and their broader vision for the country.

President Trump, whose second term has been marked by his hardline approach to immigration, released a new naturalization ceremony video last month.

“Today you receive one of the most priceless gifts ever granted by human hands. You become a citizen of the United States of America,” Trump said.

Trump went on to welcome new citizens into the “national family,” adding that they now have a responsibility to “fiercely guard” and preserve American culture, including the freedom of speech, religion and the right to bear arms. 

“ That fits into his larger narrative, but that’s not usually what you see at an American naturalization ceremony.  It’s much more of a celebration and I’m not saying that Trump doesn’t celebrate those ideas, but it’s less celebratory than his predecessors,” said Jason Edwards, a communications professor at  Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts who has studied presidential welcomes to new citizens. 

Departure from past presidents’ remarks

Only a handful of presidents have delivered remarks at naturalization ceremonies, either through video or in person. That includes Gerald Ford, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. 

Edwards said most have centered their message on how immigrants enrich and renew the country whereas Trump’s remarks emphasized what the U.S. has to offer new citizens.

“No matter where you come from, you now share a home and a heritage with some of the most exceptional heroes, legends, and patriots to ever walk the face of the earth,” Trump said in his speech. 

“ There’s no heterogeneity, there’s no celebration of diversity, there’s no celebration of past immigrants,” Edwards said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, which released Trump’s video, said his message is “an essential one” and would be part of naturalization ceremonies moving forward.

That message: “U.S. citizenship is a privilege and reserved for those who respect our laws, culture, and history,” USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said in a press release about the video. 

In both his first and second term, Trump avoided using the word “immigrant” altogether in his video message congratulating new citizens. That also strayed from his predecessors, who often called the U.S. a nation of immigrants and acknowledged the journey that newcomers took to become American citizens. 

Biden, for example, spoke about immigrants’ sacrifices and courage, adding that his own ancestors immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland.

“I don’t wanna say it’s an erasure, but it’s wanting to kind of erase that idea — you’re no longer an immigrant, you are a citizen,” Edwards said, referring to Trump’s remarks.

Instead, Trump shifted the focus to the idea of a “national family,” which often implies loyalty and obligation, according to Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha, a political science professor at the University of North Texas. 

Eshbaugh-Soha added the emphasis on family and the explicit reference to the right to bear arms are consistent with traditional conservative values — which is also unusual for ceremonial speeches like naturalization events. 

“That idea of American family is very much in line with this idea of America first,” he said. 

Generally, Trump’s rhetoric on immigration has intensified during his second term, especially during his most recent presidential campaign, according to Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of American political rhetoric at Texas A&M University.

“ The metaphors that he used about immigration, whether it was an invasion, whether immigrants were poisoning the blood of the nation and things like that,” Mercieca said. “Those are very salient ways of talking about immigration and  very different from the ways that previous presidents have done.”

Source: Trump has a welcome message for new citizens. It’s different from past presidents

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ICYMI – Chris Selley: Canada’s refugee system — and the world’s — is overdue for an overhaul

2025/07/22 Leave a comment

About 70 percent of refugees already live close to their country of origin but makes sense for Canada to support seeking refuge in neighbouring countries:

…The simple fact is, Canada is not equipped to handle as many refugee claims as we currently accept. If we were, there wouldn’t be African migrants sleeping on Toronto sidewalks. There wouldn’t have been 281,000 pending asylum cases as of March 31.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government is certainly aware of the issue. Bill C-2 proposes a one-year deadline after arriving in Canada for claiming asylum — so people with expired or revoked visas couldn’t apply, for example — and to eliminate a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement that allows illegal border-crossers who evade capture for two weeks to apply for asylum nevertheless.

Both are entirely reasonable. But the current issue of The Economist, cover headline “Scrap the refugee system,” suggests the sort of wholesale changes to the global refugee system that I have been arguing for forever. It’s interesting not so much as a piece of journalism as it is to know that liberal (and Liberal) policymakers very much tend to read The Economist.

“About 123 million people have been displaced by conflict, disaster or persecution. … All these people have a right to seek safety,” the magazine’s editorial observes. “But ‘safety’ does not mean access to a rich country’s labour market. Indeed, resettlement in rich countries will never be more than a tiny part of the solution.”

The goal, the august organ argues, should be for refugees to receive asylum closer to home — ideally in culturally and linguistically similar countries whose population will tend to be more sympathetic. For the money that rich countries spend processing everyone who manages to make it to their shores — who are generally by definition not the world’s most imperilled or downtrodden, else they wouldn’t be able to get here — they could help vastly more people to safety, even if not First World prosperity. (The latter was never the goal of the current system.)

This is an idea that would require multilateral co-operation to achieve full bloom, of course. But many First World countries are far more hostile to asylum-seekers, if not immigrants in general, than Canada is. If Canada significantly restricted refugee claims made on Canadian soil, and instead refocused its efforts on helping people find refuge closer to home, it would set a useful example — not least because we have been so welcoming, to a fault, in the past.

Source: Chris Selley: Canada’s refugee system — and the world’s — is overdue for an overhaul

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Colby Cosh: The lifelike nature of artificial intelligence

2025/07/21 Leave a comment

Interesting test:

…Well, fast-forward a dozen centuries, and along come Copernicus asking “What if Earth isn’t at the centre after all?”; Kepler asking “What if the orbits aren’t circular, but elliptical?”; and Newton, who got to the bottom of the whole thing by introducing the higher-level abstraction of gravitational force. Bye-bye epicycles.

None of these intellectual steps, mind you, added anything to anyone’s practical ability to predict planetary motions. Copernicus’s model took generations to be accepted for this reason (along with the theological/metaphysical objections to the Earth not being at the centre of the universe): it wasn’t ostensibly as sophisticated or as powerful as the old reliable geocentric model. But you can’t get to Newton, who found that the planets and earthbound objects are governed by the same elegant and universal laws of motion, without Copernicus and Kepler.

Which, in 2025, raises the question: could a computer do what Newton did? Vafa’s research group fed orbital data to AIs and found that they could correctly behave like ancient astronomers: make dependable extrapolations about the future movements of real planets, including the Earth. This raises the question whether the algorithms in question generate their successful orbital forecasts by somehow inferring the existence of Newtonian force-abstractions. We know that “false,” overfitted models and heuristics can work for practical purposes, but we would like AIs to be automated Newtons if we are going to live with them. We would like AIs to discover new laws and scientific principles of very high generality and robustness that we filthy meatbags haven’t noticed yet.

When Vafa and his colleagues found is that the AIs remain in a comically pre-Copernican state. They can be trained to make accurate predictions by being presented with observational data, but it seems that they may do so on the basis of “wrong” implicit models, ones that depend on mystifying trigonometric clutter instead of the beautiful inverse-square force law that Newton gave us. The epicycles are back!

The paper goes on to do more wombat-dissecting, using the game of Othello to show how AI reasoning can produce impressive results from (apparently) incomplete or broken underlying models. It is all very unlike the clean, rigorous “computing science” of the past 100 years: whatever you think of the prospects of AI, it is clear that the complexity of what we can create from code, or just buy off the shelf, is now approaching the complexity of biological life.

Source: Colby Cosh: The lifelike nature of artificial intelligence

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