As IF Times

link:  https://x.com/JayGenXer/status/1835642855504723994

Just this past weekend in Ottawa, a small group of people gathered to commemorate the 2022  protests against the policies of the Federal government which severely attacked personal freedoms during the Covid fiasco years.  A massive police response was carried out at the time to curtail the protests and numerous ‘leaders’ were arrested for disturbing the peace.  Nothing demonstrates the freedom in a society more than being arrested for supporting freedom; that irony was lost on the Feds.

Many years later, but too late to help the brave protestors, the courts have ruled in favor of the protestors: Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley said the invoking the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and violated the constitutional right of free expression. The federal government has already pledged to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court.  Thus, even after losing in court, the government still won’t admit the wrongfulness of their actions.

Individuals cannot compete against the unlimited resources of any government.  It’s an impossible task because only one side is under any duress.  There has to be an impartial party that illuminates the cause so that people can make their own minds up as to the veracity  and validity of events.  In fact, such an institution exists, but increasingly, it no longer works in that intended role.  That institution is media.  While many may think that media’s role is to report dog bites man stories, their real role as the fourth estate, is to shed light on the activities of governments.  They have the explicit role of framing dialogue on issues that affect the general population with balanced narratives.

You could say that they play the role of referees in a society and in that role, they are offered protection for talking freely about most every issue.  What has transpired in all Western nations is that their funding (especially in Canada) is sourced from the very government they are supposed to monitor.  The CBC is a national news organization kept alive only through government handouts, but other ‘private’ networks also similarly benefit.  As an aside, I’m not sure that any nation needs a ‘national’ news source.  As an observation, the most well known national agencies that exist are Pravda in Russia and Xinhua in China. Thus, instead of wearing the striped jerseys, they conspicuously wear the jerseys of one of the playing teams.

The link above is a snippet from a recent speech by Douglas Murray which articulately calls out media for their unholy alliance with the federal government on this very issue.  The media have put themselves into a vicious cycle of irrelevance.  The less impartial they are, the less people will subscribe to them. As their audience shrinks, their dependence of government handouts increases and thus their reportage must adhere to the official narrative….which alienates their audience more….etc etc. They have become failed institutions. Thankfully, with the popularity of social networks, people can objectively access narratives not propagated by regular media.  This fifth estate has displaced much of the power of government supported media as people turn away from one sided reportage.  Don’t expect the legacy media to give up their franchise without a fight however.  They all know the power of unlimited funding.

link: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

For those still hunkered under their beds consumed with worry about the next looming existential threat, the world continues to move forward, despite the efforts by many to impede or shape its direction.  There is a far more concerning issue immediately before mankind and that is the accelerated pace of artificial intelligence capabilities.

The ‘it’ thing at the moment is the increasing awareness of a software interface named ‘Chat GPT’.  While we have been hearing about artificial intelligence for years, this new platform is remarkable because of the scope of its ability and its ease of use.  You do not need to know formal computer-speak to use the interface; it operates using normal language inputs.

The range of subjects is apparently unlimited as people have even used it to write computer code for applications.  Suddenly, students will be able to write essays in seconds rather than cribbing off their pals.  The only clue to the veracity will be the lack of spelling and grammatical errors common among all students these days.  The world will be changed in ways we can’t even imagine, even at this early stage.

As a simple test of its ability, I tasked the program with writing something about Canada’s national broadcasting network, the CBC.  As an aside, the notion that Canada, or any nation for that matter needs a ‘national broadcasting’ outlet is preposterous.  It may as well be Xinhua or Pravda.  Does Canada need an ‘official’ outlet to impart information to the public? Certainly not in today’s world where information is as easy to access as turning on a faucet.

Come to think of it, the CBC’s role is exactly like that of Xinhua and Pravda.  They are all tasked with conveying the ‘official’ version and view of events to ensure that the people think properly; or in the CBC’s case, ensure ‘da Canadian values’.  Ever since the CBC lost the broadcast rights to Hockey Night In Canada, they’ve been searching for a reason to exist.  Without that revenue generator, they would perpetually lose money.  Fortunately, the government subsidizes them every year with buckets of tax money.  According to Perplexity.ai, it costs somewhere between 1 and 1.3 billion dollars a year to run it and approximately 200 million is from tax dollars.

So, back to the Chat GPT discussion.  As an experiment to gauge the ability of the software, I entered “write a humorous article about the outdated need for a national broadcasting company in Canada”.    I entered no statistics, no historical context and I didn’t even mention the word, CBC.  Below is the result, verbatim and it took about 10 seconds.

Once upon a time, in a land not too far away, there was a national broadcasting company known as the CBC. It was the go-to source for all the latest news, weather, and sports in Canada. But, as the years went by, technology advanced, and suddenly, the CBC found itself in a bit of a predicament.

You see, the world had changed, and people no longer relied on the CBC for their daily dose of information. With the rise of the internet and social media, the national broadcasting company had become nothing more than a relic of the past.

And so, the CBC found itself in a bit of a pickle. It didn’t know what to do or where to turn. It tried to keep up with the times by launching its own website and even starting a YouTube channel, but it was too little too late.

The CBC realized that it was no longer relevant, and it was in dire need of a makeover. So, it decided to take its fate into its own hands and do the one thing that was sure to bring it back into the spotlight – it decided to embrace its outdatedness.

And that’s when the real magic happened. The CBC suddenly became the most hip and trendy national broadcasting company around. People couldn’t get enough of its old-school charm, and the CBC was once again the talk of the town.

No longer did people dismiss it as outdated and irrelevant. Instead, they saw it as a refreshing change from the constant barrage of information that they encountered every day on their screens. The CBC was the perfect escape from the digital world, and people loved it.

So, the moral of this story is that sometimes, being outdated is not such a bad thing after all. In fact, it can even be a blessing in disguise. So, the next time you find yourself feeling like a relic from the past, just embrace it, and who knows, you might just become the coolest thing around.

In conclusion, the need for a national broadcasting company in Canada may be outdated, but it’s still as important as ever. After all, who wouldn’t want a little bit of old-school charm in their lives every now and then?

While the prose is not exactly the stuff of white papers, it did capture the context of the CBC’s role in our modern society with reference to such as ‘outdated and irrelevant’.  With the advent of free resources as Chat GPT, who needs to spend 1.3 billion on the CBC?