AI Articles increasing... - Canada/EU relationship - Seniors' election priorities

0:00This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen? Snacks? A stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manager account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pasquies, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. This is The Mornings with Simmy Podcast on Today's Show. We already have a trust problem when it comes to our news. Now it turns out Canadian publications are using freelancers that aren't even real people. They're AI. How did some of the biggest names in Canadian news publishing get duped by this? And we'll talk about Canada getting closer to the EU. An announcement is coming in a few weeks about digital trade and more, so is that it?

1:00Or can we expect even more? And with a provincial election going on, the Canadian Association of Retired Persons is taking the opportunity to put issues in front of politicians and the big one for them, getting more seniors vaccinated. Turns out BC legs way behind other provinces. We'll find out why. It's all coming up on The Mornings with Simmy Podcast. Let's get started. Well, it's finally happened. I figured it was only a matter of time. I mean, numerous Canadian publications now admit they've been duped. They published articles not from a legit person but that had been generated by artificial intelligence and you will recognize the names of these outlets for sure. Over the last couple of days, outlets like Ottawa Citizen, Western Standard, the Hub, the Montreal Gazette, they have all taken down or retracted work by an author named Daniel Robson. And get this, it was only discovered to be AI

2:03after an editor from Turkey today became suspicious because of a pitch from this Daniel Robson. The Canadian publications now say, oh, they didn't vet enough, really? Then don't they have a problem with their systems? Now, Angela Misery is a Toronto journalist and novelist and a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University and joins us now. Angela, thank you for being here. Happy to be here. What did you think when you heard about this? I mean, I was horrified from so many angles. It's hard to like nail down which once cared me the most. Just like as an editor, like how much you have to worry about this now? It's crazy. As a journalist who's worried about trust in media and as a citizen who is hearing about these stories and it's wondering what can I trust? It's horrifying from so many different angles. It really is. A couple of these were opinion pieces too, weren't they? Yes, absolutely. It's amazing how easy it is to get fooled, how reduced numbers in actual newsrooms will allow for us to actually check if people are real.

3:06It's a perfect storm of things happening that are allowing this rise in AI-fake personas to become part of our conversations. Like, this isn't, I can't even say this is the 20th time. I've heard about a fake journalist creating something and then us finding out later that they were not a real person. Do you think there are ways to prevent this? Like, are there things that you think editors should be doing? So there was this thing that went out a few weeks ago where I saw that a food magazine or a food media group was like, we're no longer taking pitches by email. We're no longer taking it to our forms. You have to call us and we have to have a conversation. And when they put that out into the world, I was like, yeah, we're walking backwards. We're trying to find humans. And sometimes the only way to do that is by talking to a human. Now, how far are we away from AI-generated clone voices being able to pitch over the phone? Not far at all, as we know from all the scams that are happening in the world. But this need to actually prove something is real before we sign off on it. It's becoming a big part of a journalist's life,

4:08which is not what I signed up for when I went to J.School. No, me neither. And I wonder as well, is it because so many of these organizations have become reliant on freelancers, right? If this person were an employee, you wouldn't have this problem. Well, this is part of a newsroom issue. Local newsrooms are so strapped for cash, even more so this year than last year. And it's a continuous downgrade in terms of how many people we actually have. Not only that, but we don't even know the people who are reporting. We all used to know who was the court reporter, who was reporting for the ballet, who was reporting. We have no idea who these people are anymore. And I'm not denigrating. I'm a freelancer. So of course they wouldn't know who I was. But how much time do you now have to dedicate as an editor to go and find out if that person is real when they have six other stories on the internet that other editors supposedly vetted, right? It's like basic fact checking, but it's also how much time do we have to do that fact checking? Yeah, it's a slippery slope, too, isn't it? Because if one publication does this, then all of a sudden that so-called author

5:10has a publication history, and is that often enough Angela for another organization to go, oh, okay, you publish somewhere else? Sure, I'll publish you. I mean, it's what we used to do in the past. It's how you used to get your pitches through it. In your pitch document, you probably had an email saying, I've also written for this and this and this and that person clicks on that. It's like, okay, I like the writing there. Sure, I'll take something from you. I think where it gets a little bit weird for me for that specific story you were talking about with, sorry, Daniel Robbins-Robson, he didn't ask for payment, right? So as far as I can tell, he wasn't paid before. Wait a minute. I think he never asked for payment. He never asked for payment. I'm looking through trying to find people who actually paid him for this, but I can't find one. So I don't know if this is accurate, so please don't take it as word of God, of course. Please fact check. But if he isn't asking for payment or if someone isn't asking for payment, that should be a red flag. Freelancer still need to be paid. So I think I have questions about that as well. Yeah, I could see why with the opinion piece, sure, you just take an opinion piece.

6:12Are you supposed to verify this person is who they say they are? If you are going to publish their piece as, oh, this person believes this? Yeah, exactly. An op-ed is still someone's opinion that they have to stand behind. And that's the weirdest thing I find that people need to get more angry about quite frankly. There is no one standing behind any of these stories. There's no one to chase down in yell at. Literally, Daniel Robbins doesn't agree. We have no idea who that person is or where this content came from or what the actual point of this was. Like what was the goal of creating this persona and then fooling this many newsrooms? Well, you would assume it's just they want influence. And if we're allowing this to happen in one case, does it make you question Angela? Like a lot of other bylines? I mean, it makes a question everything. But that's why we got into journalism to question everything. We just didn't know we'd be questioning the guy who's supposedly writing right beside us on a byline. We thought we were questioning others. But yeah, it's part of the role of a journalist to critically think and now we're doubting ourselves. We're doubting our own people who aren't people.

7:13It's really. Yeah, how do we get around this? Do you see any evidence that the industry is learning from these problems? Well, like I said, that post from that food magazine or food media group that said we're only taking pitches by phone. Yes, I do think we're responding to it. But when I hear from editors, just the pink slime pitches that they're getting, like they're getting in and in. What do you qualify as pink slime pitches? What is that? So pitches that just have nothing in them. They're basically just like drivel. They're they're spun up from an AI that you've asked. What are three stories that you know, the Guardian would be interested in this week? You're getting inundated with those kind of pitches that have no human behind them. And then you know, the actual pitches from actual humans are buried somewhere in these like thousands of emails. You're getting some people who aren't people. But the pressure is to feed the machine, right? Angela, and this is I think what the general public doesn't understand is that you want to click on something new constantly. You're constantly checking your phone or whatever. This is how that machine is fed.

8:14I think that this machine is something we built and we need to get off the machine. I think we need to go back to you. Do not need 24 seven news. How is that helped us? How is that help the industry? How is that help journalism and how is that help citizens who now feel overwhelmed by the amount of news being thrown at them to the point that they're not even getting news from the regular news places anymore, right? So I think I would walk back that like are we actually feeding a beast? Are we actually with a machine that we are making choices for? I don't know. I love that discussion. And well, thank you so much for talking to us about that today. Anytime. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen, snacks, a stapler. The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security and pass keys, you're protected at every step.

9:16Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. Brussels clean up nicely at Sweet Green. Maple glazed, roasted, and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweet Green's fall harvest is back on the menu. And the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do? Order on the Sweet Green app. And we're waiting to find out what it means for Canada to potentially become this associate member of the European Union. I hear people talking about this all the time. Like we are curious. We want to know how this impacts us. Well, now we're hearing that at the end of this month, so the end of October, the EU and Canada will announce a new partnership at a summit in Montreal. And this agreement is supposed to cover things like digital trade barriers and investments. So let's kind of translate all of that, shall we? Or El Braun is Professor of International Relations and Political Science at the University of Toronto

10:17and joins us now. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Do you think this is another step towards associate membership or is this the deal? We do not have any kind of clear definition of what associate membership is. There is no such status. We were told by Mr. Carney that this will be something that is new that will represent a new type of relationship between Canada and the European Union, which is a vast block of very successful advanced nations in Europe, 27 members. But there has been no specific agreement. And we have to look at what has happened in the past and what the possibilities are because hope is always something that is very useful, especially in difficult times. It is the case that Mr. Carney is standing up to Donald Trump. So the impression is that he's standing up to a bully,

11:18he's getting applause all of the world, he travels constantly everywhere. And he is celebrated. But we have to ask some very tough questions. What exactly we mean in terms of the betterment of the Canadian economy. And then realism is perhaps not quite as positive as the optimism that Mr. Carney, who is a brilliant politician, is able to generate. We have an example already of a very elaborate agreement that we have with the European Union's call the comprehensive economic trade agreement seat up. And that was signed in 2017 that was removing some like 98% of the tariffs between Canada and the EU states. But even though this was something that came into effect in 2017, some like 10 members of the EU have yet to ratify that treaty.

12:19And when you look at how the EU functions is a very highly bureaucratic and extremely protectionist organization and actual membership in the EU is not only difficult to attain, but you give up a great deal of your sovereignty. Mr. Carney assured us that we're not giving up our sovereignty. So there are probably formal questions that should be asked. And I'm concerned that we're not asking enough of the questions as to how this is going to look like in the future. Are we shifting trade away from the United States completely or in such a material way that there's a totally balancing? Or will this be something that is a hope, something that may turn out to be positive, but we have no specifics? Okay, so where do you think that we should start then when it turns in terms of questions that we should be asking right now? We have to be very realistic about the number of facts.

13:21One is that trade with the United States is 4.5 to 5 times as much as it is with the EU. That some like 68 to 70% of our exports go to the United States. That only 8.6 to 8.7% of our trade is with the EU. So even if we double that, it will still not change some of the fundamentals of the United States. And consequently, what we do with Europe is something that could be positive, but it doesn't replace our relationship with the United States. And that is a starting point. That is where we need to be realistic. Then we have to look at specifics. What do the Europeans want from us? And what they really want from us are extraction goods. That is they want minerals. They want energy. That of course will bring in revenue. The problem is that we are in major manufacturing country. And the EU does not want to import our cars

14:23by our motorcycles, our trucks, our locomotives, or our airplanes. And it is also a cost factor. That if we include sharp trade with Europe, that has to be across the Atlantic. That will generate extra transportation climate. Because it will affect the environment. So that hope has to be leveraged with realism. That aspirations are not achievements and promises are not policies. Okay, so the agenda that we heard from the head of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, involved things like a tech alliance or maybe integrating some defense industrial issues using the Arctic for that. And definitely talked about more technology things, minerals, batteries, AI, that kind of thing. Are those areas that you think that maybe we should stick to because you don't want Canada, we don't want Canada to get bogged down into the previous bureaucratic issues?

15:26We don't want Canada to be bogged down and we don't want to be humans of wood and dogs of water. We have an advanced industry and this is why we want to have agreements in the digital areas and in the industrial areas. And we want to have investments. But the Europeans are behind in AI, behind China and behind United States. And in terms of defense industries, they also are not at the same level as United States. They do not produce stealth fiber, for example. And it is also the case that we are tied and not only through NATO, but also through Nord. We have an integrated defense in North America. So we can't quite unravel that. And so we have to look at carefully all the contracts that we sign. If we are going to buy from the Europeans, fiber aircraft, I think we go for the sob, how would that impact our capabilities of defending ourselves in the Arctic

16:27or contributing better to our NATO forces in Europe? So these are issues where in many ways, what we have to ask is, show us the contract. Let us see the details. These grand goals and plans that Mr. Andre Leon has and Prime Minister Kaniha, they sound really wonderful. But look at the sub-Indea, for example. We talk about a hundred billion dollars of expenditures that would come with buying submarines from this consortium that is a German Norway undertaking. But we're not going to get those submarines at least until 2034. And we have not yet signed that contract. We have decided who the preferred supplier would be. And it's only next year that we signed a contract. So this is why when we have this candle, a EU summit again this month,

17:29I think we'd be incumbent on all of us from the press to the academic world, to parliament, to ask some very tough questions. What exactly are we getting? And what precisely are we getting ourselves into? What is the balance between what are gains for Canada and what are we giving up? Let's not forget that the EU is a super-national entity. It is an interest state organization. That's very true. We have to wait to the end of the month to get more details, I guess, a oral thank you very much for your time on that. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen, snacks, a stapler? The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money, shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security and pasquies, you're protected at every step.

18:29Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. Brussels clean up nicely at Sweet Green. Maple glazed, roasted, and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweet Green's fall harvest is back on the menu, and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweet Green app. We are heading into that time of year. We're having a cold or getting the flow is something that we are going to be hearing more about. For a lot of people, it starts as soon as the kids are back in school, right? Latest cold, I think, is already going around. And we are also in a provincial election campaign. That means different groups are trying to put issues on the table to be talked about during this election campaign. And the Canadian Association of Retired Persons has highlighted its top three priorities in support of seniors here in BC. And one of those priorities has everything to do

19:30with preventing seniors from getting the flu that will soon be going around. Anthony Quinn is the president of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons and joins us now. Anthony, thank you for being here. Good morning, Jimmy. And happy National Senior Day today. October 1st is National Senior Day. Great time to talk to you. Well, isn't that convenient then, too, right? Is this something that you do, Anthony, for provincial elections? You provide these kinds of priorities? Well, what our members do is they tell us what their priorities are. And then we bring them to the rest of our membership and the greater population. So they understand what the pressures are on older adults in the province and what their needs are. What they're asking politicians to get on board with. And those priorities should be accepted by all of the parties. We don't think these are partisan issues. We think these are really important social issues that will be good for Canadians today and British Columbians in the future. Well, so let's talk about these issues then. What are these top three priorities? Well, the three we've outlined for this provincial campaign

20:31are to restore the long-term care home funding for building homes and beds in British Columbia. That, the government recently put up, put the brakes on. So that was a move that has left thousands on the wait list. And the longer we kick that can down the road, the more people will be on those lists. So number one priority is to get those long-term care homes started and get them finished for those 7,000 people currently waiting in line. Yeah, I can see why that would be a priority. That is a huge concern. And what about this vaccination issue? Is BC falling behind on this? BC is quite a way, quite a ways behind from other provinces in the funding of adult vaccines. So there is a program for COVID, thankfully, for flu and pneumonia. But the high dose flu shot really isn't well covered. And shingles and RSV, not widely available. And that shingles shot can cost a couple hundred dollars out of pocket. So when older adults are making the decision with their limited budgets in and worried about just how long their money will last.

21:33When their doctor or their pharmacist recommends the shingles vaccine, they're all for it. But then they realize they have to pay for it out of pocket. And that becomes a real barrier to access. So many provinces are covering it for certain age groups, but BC hasn't moved ahead yet. And why is that, do you think? Is it just cost? Well, it does come with a cost, but those costs are offset by the prevention. If someone gets shingles there out of the workforce and we know just how debilitating shingles can be. So from our point of view, and I think from public health point of view, making these investments in advance of protecting patients is the way to cut down costs in the healthcare system in the future. Right. Okay. So that's something that you really want. Is that like the number one priority for the selection that you would like to see that dealt with? That seems to be an easy win that they could have, isn't it? It's a long term ask for us. I mean, we've been asking different premieres to get moving on this. And this is the time during the campaign for voters to speak to their representatives knocking on their door and say, Hey, I need a promise.

22:34I need you to fund these adult vaccines just the same way you fund the children's vaccines. It's important and it can be life-saving. Okay. So how different is BC? Would you say from other provinces in terms of seniors and vaccinations? Well, following behind, I'm calling you from Ontario right now. And everyone in Ontario between the age of the 65 and 70 has access to the shingles vaccine. There's a five year window where it's covered for you for free. The pharmacist and the doctor will say, Hey, you've reached this milestone time to get your shingle shot. And there's no out of pocket costs. So when we talk to our members coast to coast, we compare province to province and say, Hey, do you know that you're missing out on what other Canadians are getting? And we don't think how healthcare should be determined by your postal code. We believe this universal vaccine program is something that the federal government should be pushing provinces to take on. And we believe that the provincial formularies should have things like the RSV, shingles, COVID, all part of that formulary.

23:35And I know you were making kind of the economic argument for that, but getting that done. So if you said that, OK, over 55, you can get these shots. What kind of a difference do you think that would make? Well, we have this vaccine that was not available to our previous generations. And it is 90 plus percent effective in preventing shingles. So the opportunity here to prevent a very debilitating condition, very painful, and something that is more likely to affect older adults, seems like something you would want to provide to your parents and your grandparents in your community. And it would make a tremendous difference in the overall health and just the sense that the politicians and public health are looking out for us and giving us the opportunity. Now, this is an mandated vaccine, but it's something that people are reluctant to get because of the costs. So if it can remove the cost barrier, then they have the opportunity for that care. I would imagine there'd be quite a few fewer sick days as a result of that for that age group, too.

24:37Certainly fewer sick days, but the cost of hospital beds run in the thousands of dollars a day. So if you are in the ER and you're taking hours in the ER and then you need acute care or you're being sent home and you're missing work or you're unable to do those other things that you're contributing to society, whether it's volunteering or caring for grandchildren, all of those things have knock-on effects in our community and those costs add up so that the opportunity to prevent those things saves the economy in the long run. So any reaction from calling for this? Has anybody gotten back to you? Unfortunately, the last response we had from the government was that it wasn't going to be part of the last budget. So every year we submit our pre-budget submissions. We ask the government to make sure that they're looking at funding these vaccines and they don't take action. During a campaign, especially one that's being called sort of off the cuff here in British Columbia, it's a great time to say, hey, how about if you want my vote, you'll promise to do this and then we ask our members to hold their vote close to their vest and say,

25:39unless you're going to take action, you promise it in your campaign platform. We're not going to vote for you. We will see what happens, Anthony. Thank you for your time. Thanks, Anthony. Thanks for listening to The Mornings with Simea Podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Google Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can always listen to us live in The Morning Monday to Friday from 5.30 to 9 on 7.30 CKNW. Brussels clean up nicely at Sweet Green. Maple glazed, roasted and edges perfectly caramelized. Sweet Green's fall harvest is back on the menu, and the season's most overlooked little green vegetable is dressed to be devoured. You know what to do. Order on the Sweet Green app.