00:00:00.160as you go up the work pyramid to more elite jobs this is where things get a little bit different
00:00:05.120a little tricky what is ai going to do if you need 10 accountants in a big company before do
00:00:11.440you just need two now because of ai if you need if you needed so many legal secretaries lawyers
00:00:17.680right do you just need a few like so this this really changes
00:00:21.840a lot of jobs that people were told were bulletproof are not so much bulletproof anymore
00:00:30.000Love it or hate it, AI is coming into our lives at a rapid pace from data centers to AI in our daily lives.
00:00:38.780From Shanghai to Regina, from Louisiana to Grand Prairie, Alberta, AI is changing the landscape, not just here in Canada, but around the world.
00:00:47.080But how will it change the landscape? To talk more about it, thrilled to be joined, as always, by Paul Micucci. Paul, how are you?
00:00:52.720Hey, Jim, how are you today? Interesting topic, getting a lot of interesting reviews across the United States, as we talked about before the show.
00:01:00.000uh ronnie chang from the daily show yeah was a brilliant comedian actor yeah he was doing the
00:01:07.060graduation speech and you know for those of you watching convocations across the united states
00:01:13.940over the last three weeks which as we know their schools let out earlier than ours they've had
00:01:19.620these people standing up saying ai is the future and the students have been panning them they've
00:01:25.820been booing them they've been throwing things at them so ronnie gets up and he says fai and all of
00:01:32.680harvard the students stand up and start to cheer that this gentleman is panning it so you know
00:01:39.700there's an interesting dynamic going on between young people who are starting their careers their
00:01:45.640thoughts on ai and the future of ai because you know you and i jimmy and not that i'm uh i'm hoping
00:01:52.680we see it but quite frankly i'm pretty sure we're not going to see we're going to see some impacts
00:01:58.280of ai in our lifetime yeah and you know we talked about some impacts from medical on a small scale
00:02:05.080and i think we're going to talk about that in a few minutes but what you know we have these
00:02:09.400software developers going on podcasts talking about the world changing and robots yeah let's
00:02:16.840play the clip so people know let's so let's go to the clip right now and then you'll understand
00:02:21.400and why paul is leading off with this so this is our man from the daily show ronnie doing his thing
00:02:28.080with our friends at harvard well on the topic of a's by the way um can i just say a i1.00
00:02:37.680it's stupid it's so stupid have you tried using it it's always wrong0.99
00:02:50.800Like, I asked AI what's the fastest way to get from New York City to Harvard,1.00
00:06:30.160Interesting, because we've been hearing Kevin O'Leary and a bunch of people, they're here, Jim, and before the show, Jim was taking me through some of the West Coast projects that they're talking about doing, which I find really interesting.
00:06:43.060And we had the debate before about, are these specific data centers that they're talking about billing for specific projects?
00:06:52.460Because I think we've got to kind of look at AI on two different levels.
00:06:57.600So when I look at, you know, the stuff that Elon Musk is talking about is revolutionizing the world, you know, creating 3,000 robots a year or whatever the crazy, 300,000.
00:07:34.300I think it is a lot of dot-coms, and we're going to talk about that in a minute.
00:07:38.220But when you listen to the chatter about it and the software developers that are coming and talking about how it's going to change the world in the next 36 to five years, 36 months to 60 months, you know, I look at it and think, okay, whatever.
00:07:51.620But, you know, there are benefits we can get now, which I think are fantastic through AI.
00:07:58.660And then the other things they're talking about are changing our culture and our economy.
00:08:04.060I think we have to realistically stop and then talk a little bit about the feasibility.
00:08:09.680So let's talk about the Canadian project for a minute.
00:08:12.380There are some big ones that Inc. has been signed, and Premier Moe of Saskatchewan, along with the executives in Bell, Bell Canada.
00:08:20.260They're building a huge 300-megawatt facility on an empty patch of industrial land south of Regina.
00:08:28.960Talos is building one in Kamloops and one in Rimouski, Quebec.
00:08:32.720Now, there's a company called Digital Realty, which is turning the old Toronto Star printing press off the 407 in Vaughan to a 700,000 square foot AI-ready facility.
00:08:57.520I know Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is building a massive AI data center in northeast Louisiana.
00:09:04.480But a lot of these companies are looking at either communities with a lot of empty industrial land that's being unused or buildings that once house a lot of stuff that isn't being used.
00:09:16.760And they're stepping in and filling the void.
00:09:22.200So let's talk about that for a minute.
00:09:23.540So the Alberta projects, you know, before the show, I took a look at Alberta and I said, okay, what capacity could Alberta really take now?
00:11:48.480you're hearing all these software developers tell stories
00:11:51.040how, you know, in 36 months, robots are going to come in.
00:11:55.440They're going to go on the assembly line.
00:11:57.620They're going to start to assemble everything.
00:12:00.160So every manufacturing plant will be a robot.
00:12:02.400But we do not have even close to the grid capacity to do any of this.
00:12:10.380So when I'm talking about scaling, Jim, I'm talking about the small project, you know, AI center.
00:12:16.340So when Kevin O'Leary and the guys who are pitching deals on the west coast of Canada right now, they're talking about very small scaled AI data centers.
00:13:03.000There's no project, quite frankly, substantially in Canada, just to get your grid changed and get your capacity into your site is a five-year timeline.
00:13:11.820So that's, you know, that's not, we're not talking just a condo.
00:14:30.260It has to be very prescribed because they're not big enough to do anything on a larger scale that you'd be looking, quite frankly, at getting some money from government.
00:14:42.240And where is government going to come up with the money?
00:14:44.780So the subscription model, here's the thing.
00:14:47.160Take the cost of all these, $71 billion, there has to be a revenue model, subscription model, for him to go out there and raise the money on it.
00:14:57.480So he's saying, I'm going to go to the private market, probably not the public market, right?
00:15:04.000There could be some people, I guess, eventually they will take it public if they can figure out a subscription model after it's built that actually can garner revenue.
00:15:12.200But quite frankly, if we treat these like public utilities, we don't have the money to do them.
00:15:18.200So if they get built and we can't use them for anything.
00:15:21.200Well, think about this, Paul. You're saying the hospitals are tapped out.
00:15:25.200All summer, if you live in Ontario, all you hear about is a charity bake sale, a walk-a-thon, a golf event, a lottery,
00:15:34.200just trying to scrape up a few extra dollars to keep these hospitals running.
00:15:39.200all the whole summer and that's like in every province in canada so where would they have the
00:15:43.440money for a subscription to a hedge fund on ai medical data center well you'd have to cut something
00:15:50.640you'd have to cut i was just going to go there thank you so you'd you'd have to go and you'd
00:15:54.640have to say okay you're going to have half the hospitals or half the doctors at half the nurses
00:16:00.480half the you know there's listen as much as uh you know it is a complicated business because
00:16:05.760medical is tough but it's not a super complex you know you build a medical center you bring in the
00:16:12.480staff you care for the people and you use the equipment to try to treat them so it is it is
00:16:17.840a fairly process driven but it's a basic model right complications is research because you're
00:16:24.400constantly trying to do research to better you know subscribe better medicines and better
00:16:31.760treatments but for the most part you would be cutting out people or capital or operating costs
00:16:39.440in order to accommodate the ai so what he's saying is i'm going to spend 70 billion dollars
00:16:45.280now we can we can if we're not using medical we can take this analysis to any other sector
00:16:50.400whether it's government whether it's uh name a sector auto financial like financial
00:16:56.480plan or something banks yes right we can do anything you could take that model he could say
00:17:02.060i'm going to use you know i'm going to build an ai data center because the one i'm building out west
00:17:07.500has to be specific it doesn't we don't have enough energy to do anything on a large scale
00:17:12.440like an elon musk is talking about so you would be specific an industry specific data center so
00:17:18.560you do that you take it you have to say okay we're gonna get rid i i just don't think honestly
00:17:25.760Number one, what I think he's probably not thinking about or they're not thinking about, quite frankly, those environments are highly unionized.
00:17:33.840So, quite frankly, you would have to go in.
00:17:44.780But quite frankly, you know, we're already at these crazy pain points with respect to medical lineups and people and doctors and everything else.
00:17:52.540If you dial down that barometer anymore, I think you'd have a real challenge in Canada, keeping people not getting protesting and really changing governments over even poorer service.
00:18:06.360I'm going to bring up something you've said in previous shows about spending priorities in business and in government.
00:18:12.480And certain things have to be priority one, two, and three.
00:18:15.860And the other stuff, you have to either dial back or cut.
00:18:18.820Right. Unfortunately, the future, whether we like it or not, China and other countries around the world will start crushing us because they're building these massive AI data centers.
00:18:29.840So one thing we have a leg up over Europe and other countries is huge expanses of space to build these.
00:18:39.040We've got the space, whether it's Grand Prairie, Alberta, which is five hours northeast of Edmonton,
00:18:44.240or southern Regina, which I've been through, with huge expanses of empty space to build things like this.
00:18:50.740And that is the one advantage Canada has.
00:18:53.700So as much as it's painful, maybe this is where the federal government says this has to be a priority for the country's future.
00:19:01.340And maybe we need to spend less money on this and this in the federal budget and start focusing and help get these built.
00:19:09.140Well, then, so what you're really saying, so this is an interesting thing where I think this leads, the economic model to this inevitably is a, it's a utility.
00:19:19.980So what I think these AI developers, I'm going to call them, you know, not using any names, but I think what they're really saying is, quite frankly, I want to make this, I want to do this.
00:19:41.320Yeah, because, I mean, it is a threat.0.84
00:19:43.680So say China's super, you know, China has been increasing their electrical grid.
00:19:49.280Out of the whole world, China's been the one country that, quite frankly, has year on year seen massive increases in their electrical grid.
00:22:07.840So then they're going to be sitting there.
00:22:10.000Europe is, I don't know, all over the place.
00:22:13.540I don't know anyone else who's going to do it.0.98
00:22:15.640So then you'll have a bunch of the Chinese will be sitting there trying to figure out where to sell their products they're building so efficiently at that point.0.96
00:22:23.960Because people will be like, well, yeah, you did that, but I don't know what you're going to do.
00:23:56.660There are certain companies that will do better.
00:23:58.540I think figuring out the world dynamics with respect to AI first.
00:24:03.320So everyone's got to sit down and say, how are we going to use it?
00:24:06.000That's going to take a long time, Jim.
00:24:08.500Because they haven't had any big serious talks yet, Paul.
00:24:11.080And, I mean, the world leaders talk a good game, but have they actually brought in the experts in their respective countries and said, this is the good, the bad, the ugly of AI.
00:24:20.740Let's focus on the good, try to avoid the bad, and stay away from the ugly.
00:24:24.600because and this is part of the problem if you went to canadians and said we're going to build
00:24:29.720these ai data centers in these parts of the country with a focus on health care and this like
00:24:35.160stuff that we need i think most games go okay yeah that makes sense yeah that makes this a bet that
00:24:40.200helps the nation it's not going to put me out of work it's going to make me live longer i'm ready
00:24:44.200for that yeah i'm which is where we're at really like you know and again we all these podcasts
00:24:50.680where these people get on and they talk about you know there's going to be all these robots and we're
00:24:55.960going to sit at home and they're going to do everything for us and listen you know if if you
00:25:01.960listen to all this you're really going down it's a it's great um it's good content it's fine it's
00:25:08.600great content it's enlightened for some people it's interesting for me it's it's the business
00:25:14.440model's not there it's a bunch of hogwash you know then you listen you go on and you listen to
00:25:19.720elon musk and the podcast he does listen i get it you know the fact that he wants to go into space
00:25:25.080he wants to create solar fields in space he wants to do you know more flights to space than we
00:25:32.280currently have uh planes leaving airports uh oh you see the jeff bezos rocket the other day testing
00:25:39.480that didn't go so well well they're all they're all interesting ideas but even he said so this
00:25:44.600is interesting and when you when you really look behind the the wall of what he's talking about
00:25:49.720Even he says, listen, to do this at scale, because quite frankly, doing small data centers using
00:25:58.280electricity and water and challenges and centers across the nation is fine. But to do this at scale
00:26:04.520and make it big enough, you basically need, it could never be done on earth. So in other words,
00:26:12.200But you'd have to take, you'd have to create data center power electrical plants the size of Nevada.
00:26:20.380And already, you think about some of the can-do reactors we have in Pickering and other parts of Ontario.
00:26:26.660We have some of the world's biggest nuclear reactors.
00:26:29.380So you're saying you'd have to build one two or three times the size, and the only sole focus is to power the data center.
00:27:01.460So we do have, we've done an amazing job.
00:27:05.480But quite frankly, we do have specialty areas I believe we can go.
00:27:10.040I do believe that if we specialize in certain areas like medical and other areas, we can do really well at this.
00:27:16.260But, you know, to sit there and say that I'm, you know, and my kids should be worried that we're going to be out of jobs, you know, and that they're going to be sitting at home where we started the show.
00:27:27.720Well, I'll bring a scenario, Paul, maybe our kids' kids.
00:27:31.020I remember being in high school in the early 1980s when everyone said, well, computers are going to take our job.
00:27:44.640So every 10, 15 years has been a new introduction of a technology, a new thing that wasn't around before, that this is going to take your job.
00:27:54.720And the people still worked, you know, because there's so many things that actually need human beings still.
00:28:27.080So in the lab, I think it all gets proven out, quite frankly.
00:28:30.580yeah you know it'll happen you know their math skills their english skills their language skills
00:28:36.500will be much more superior to the average human being or the even the most the smartest human
00:28:42.180being but quite frankly what do you do with that at some point and given the ability uh
00:28:48.900or inabilities to get the resources to build the power to build the plants we're just not
00:28:55.060equipped to do it at this point so no matter what we can what we build whether how much uh we can
00:29:00.980develop a robotics we're not going to get there in this this is a 50 to 100 year program quite
00:29:08.740frankly that may be at the end of that but in our lifetime no so but imagine our kids lifetime
00:29:14.740probably not the canadian pension plan and so many canadians rely on that money every month
00:29:21.220Imagine they had an AI data center dedicated to the Canadian pension plan to make the right financial decisions and right investments.
00:29:28.380And all of a sudden, instead of 5% or 6% return, it's 15% or 20% and more and more money is going to the pension plan, meaning more and more Canadians have a financial safety net when they retire.
00:29:39.560But to me, I think most Canadians would sign up for that.
00:30:08.580If we can't even tool up our electrical grid in a decade,
00:30:18.800So, assuming we can't even get to the point where we're even at a basic level of power requirements to do specific AI, that will take us a decade.
00:30:30.760How long is it going to take us to build something substantially to start to replace human beings?
00:30:36.940You know, that's where I think, quite frankly, and, you know, we hear about self-driving cars and all these things.
00:30:45.120very specific purposes you know the way they do them which is very interesting if you watch kind
00:30:51.960of the way they power those cars they actually um tap into the grid and off hours and then they
00:30:58.980store the energy and reuse it throughout the day okay that's cool so but to do that you need battery
00:31:06.040requirements so again the cost the space the the technology the battery replacement the battery
00:31:14.140disposal, the waste, the sewage, the water requirements, you know, again, once you get
00:31:20.780into battery technology and harnessing that and cooling it, there's so many other issues you got
00:31:27.680to deal with. Therefore, you know, when I mentioned earlier, let's go down into Nevada and start to
00:31:32.200build AI centers, what's too hot? So quite frank, climate is not great. Our climate probably better
00:35:08.620Again, you know, we talk about robots replacing us,
00:35:12.380but we don't talk about anything with the nuances.
00:35:16.020And to me, it's because a lot of the people we're actually hearing from now
00:35:20.480are software developers that are really happy
00:35:24.860that this is taking off this is a great business for them quite frankly they can get jobs where
00:35:31.180they go and they build ai matrices and programs and they they get into it and it it potentially
00:35:39.260will be a great five years for them but quite frankly when you get into this is where software
00:35:44.100meets hardware so this is kind of the guy the guy who designs the building and the guy who actually
00:35:49.060goes and pours the concrete and puts the steel in realizes that the guy who designed the building
00:35:54.900never built a building right the hvac won't work and the plumbing's a bit of a mess and the parking
00:36:00.120garage is going to crumble and now i got to fix it exactly and this is where we're at on this right
00:36:04.500there's a bunch of philosophical people saying okay i'm going to sit down and come up with all
00:36:08.820these you know star trek ideas that are going to be great i'm going to go to the moon so many times
00:36:13.540a year i'm going to do all this stuff i'm going to take solar panels like think about it you could
00:36:18.420you can go into space great you can create your robots in space so you can create your solar panels
00:36:23.940your energy you got to then figure out a way to get your energy back to earth we've not they've
00:36:30.660not figured that out no so what are you gonna do produce it and then do what logistically truck it
00:36:36.660back to earth like you know what i mean like think about it it is crazy these conversations but we're
00:36:42.740having them and you know people are like you know they're going to do a fund for this and i'm going
00:36:48.100to participate in it and i'm like i don't know like you are i can think of other funds i would
00:36:53.540invest in first yeah i can think of other funds but but again i'm not i'm not when i talk about
00:37:00.180ai what i'm trying to say is i i like the concept i'm not against ai i'm again i'm for the development
00:37:05.940i think we have to be cautious you know already so this is an interesting remember aaron brokovich
00:37:11.060of course yeah of course academy award-winning movie julie roberts great movie and a true story
00:37:17.140true story i'm getting ready for the show and the story was about um oh what was it cancer and it
00:37:24.020was about uh it was the toxic water yeah toxic water caused by uh it's going to come to me
00:37:31.380nick is it who's the aaron brockovich company uh i look at it i thought it was dupont is it
00:37:39.380no i don't know if it was dupont i'll look it up if you could look it up that'd be great
00:37:43.300but you know she's already on the case she already has a website she's already trying to think so
00:37:49.460you know if you live let's take a specific gas and electric company yeah and it infected the
00:37:56.500groundwater contaminated right okay i was i was thinking it was something else but you know she's
00:38:02.900already on the case she's already got a website she's already talking about the impacts of people
00:38:07.460So already the legal beagles are already on the trail of this saying, okay, if they're going to build an AI center by you, number one, your home values, your health, you can already see the cases and slowing down and where do you build it, how do you do it?
00:38:25.040You know, nuclear centers still have that, you know, nuclear power is great, but quite frankly, there's all kinds of settlements go on all year long for people who show up and say, I took my pills because I live 10 kilometers from that nuclear plant.
00:38:40.280I took them like you asked me to, you know, the ones they send them, the ones they send people in the mail just to say, take this because your radiation might be higher than other people.
00:38:49.820And then they show up and say, you know, I got cancer at 50.
00:38:54.080But they still have settlements going on for, you know, those power plants.
00:38:59.980But having said all that, there are still communities in North America who are welcoming this with open arms.
00:39:05.540There was a story recently where Mark Zuckerberg and Meta went to a porous area of northeast Louisiana to set up an AI data center with a crumbling town.
00:39:16.000You see it with the border, and they're like, I'm bending knee.
00:39:19.800Because they're like, oh, we need jobs to build it, and we need people to run it.
00:39:23.440and it's going to save the community oh yeah and now but now at the same time north bay they tried
00:39:28.420to build one in north bay and ontario and they got so much pushback from the locals are like
00:39:32.540they had to tap out and kill the project so some communities will hold their nose and say yes to
00:39:39.260it because they're so desperate but others won't but i can see the the there's the air and brock
00:39:43.900of its side not in my life no way and then there's the mayor of these towns and poor areas of the
00:39:49.460north america like please bring it uh tesla got some uh pushback in tennessee and jumped the
00:39:55.780border to memphis sorry they jumped the border over into uh uh sorry i got that wrong but uh
00:40:05.140because memphis is tennessee yeah exactly they went to mississippi they went to mississippi so
00:40:09.540right right so they actually got some and they went over to mississippi sorry but the you know
00:40:14.900it's interesting to see how they're jumping to find you know which industries do that right
00:40:19.780whether it's any industry that has challenges gaming did it gaming did it uh for years you
00:40:26.900know they would go town to town until someone said please build a casino here and the next thing you
00:40:30.660know boom they were in right because you could drive in in rural parts of north america canada
00:40:36.020us you're like oh like on the 401 outside of belleville there's one in the middle of nowhere
00:40:41.140yeah and you're like what is it there's a casino there you know you drive by it and it happens all
00:40:45.380the time yeah they were willing to accept it in and they let them come in and quite frankly
00:40:50.260this is the same thing they're going to go from place to place till they find a place to put them
00:40:54.580without the opposition without the opposition and we'll get built but at the end of the day
00:41:00.500but they're not going to get built to the extreme uh ends that we're hearing about so when we have
00:41:06.900these g20 summits that we see in the news in the cbc and bbc and whatnot paul and they're talking
00:41:12.660about all this stuff i think on the agenda ai data centers and the future ai has to be one of
00:41:19.220the top things because it's happening you can't deny it so while you're talking about the economy
00:41:24.900and the war in iran let's talk about this what are we doing what's our strategy what do we want to
00:41:31.380avoid. Have you seen anything like that, a group thing from all these countries? That's a conversation
00:41:37.860that has to be had. Yeah. Well, if it is, so here's the interesting thing. If it's not had,
00:41:45.460does it ever grow as an industry? That's what, you know, there might be someone take off on it,
00:41:49.300but then the world is becoming isolation. It's an isolationist theory or isolationist strategy
00:41:55.940happening now yeah so you know we talk on shows about the western hemisphere versus the rest of
00:42:01.220the world we talk about quite frankly uh military and development and certain and if you know iran
00:42:08.900goes a different way so all these geopolitical issues will tie into what's going to happen on
00:42:14.180the ai front absolutely so as they're hopefully you know those get resolved and calmed down
00:42:21.060And when those are calmed and the world is a little nicer place, right, than right now,
00:42:29.380then it's time to sit down and say, okay, where does AI fit? Because if one leaps ahead and,
00:42:35.860for example, China, does it go back to a geopolitical mess again? Do we actually stop0.69
00:42:42.180trade? Do we stop interaction? What happens? Well, think about last week, there was a Chinese
00:42:49.380high-ranking official in Ottawa, Mark Carney, and they were not allowed any questions.
00:42:55.380The press were thrown in there and they had 60 seconds to set up and take a quick video or photo
00:43:01.780and then thrown out immediately. So we're not even, reporters aren't even allowed to ask them
00:43:07.700questions. Maybe they wanted to ask the guy a question about AI and coal-fired hydro plants
00:43:12.820and whatnot, but that was forbidden. And Carney said, no, no, no, no. He didn't want to offend
00:43:17.060So right now, Carney and the liberal government, a lot of governments, are so in bed with China when it comes to business, they really will do anything to avoid offending them.
00:43:28.700Well, but again, the geopolitical issues, it's fine for us to sort of in isolation go off and talk to different people and do trade deals and everything else.
00:43:38.920As the geopolitical issues get resolved and, you know, the war, current wars going on get resolved, where that shakes out, I think we're very naive to think that's not going to impact those negotiations as we go through it.
00:43:52.820And therefore, I think we're very naive to actually think that AI right now is, other than on an isolated basis, is a truly viable business.
00:44:04.180I think you've got to let those things play out first.
00:44:06.640Once those things play out, then I think your point, Jim, about an active discussion of how AI plays on the world format, how it impacts, you know, other than military, I think is a discussion that each country has to have.
00:44:19.900and but right now the one thing that is happening and you just brought it up
00:44:23.740militaries in the world are using ai planning for logistics picking targets they're using ai to help
00:44:30.460their decision making and and they're looking at patterns of movement and where the where the enemy
00:44:36.540is and where they're not and using that to not waste time and resources of potential lives when
00:44:42.540they attack someone i i mean we'd be naive to think that ai hasn't been a huge help to ukraine
00:44:48.140in their battle against russia is being used all the time between the usa and iran but then it
00:44:53.020becomes then the interesting part it becomes a world of whose ai is better than yeah so now
00:44:59.340you're creating a sub industry within the military machine of ai for military that actually is trying
00:45:06.940to build ai that's better than another country's ai because we can't let them get better exactly so
00:45:13.180So that's a never-ending battle where you never really know.