Google has expanded the availability of its artificial-intelligence-based chatbot Bard to most countries in the world, except for Canada and totalitarian regimes like North Korea.
The company cited “regulatory uncertainty” as the reason for excluding Canada from the launch of Bard, which is similar to ChatGPT or Microsoft’s Bing AI.
“We’re committed to being good partners as we work through regulatory uncertainty in Canada, and we’re enthusiastic about bringing Bard’s generative AI potential to Canadians soon,” a Google spokesperson told the National Post.
Other countries not included in the rollout are Russia, China and Afghanistan.
Bard is a chatbot that can generate conversational responses based on user input while tapping into Google’s search engine as a knowledge base.
However, Canadian users will not be able to access Bard anytime soon, as Google spars with Ottawa in response to the Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18.
The legislation requires Google and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, to pay Canadian news publishers for displaying their content on their platforms – a practice which critics have branded a “tax on links.”
Google and Meta have opposed the bill, saying it is unworkable and unfair.
They have moved to block Canadian news from their platforms, which would exempt them from the requirements of the bill.
Meta has said it will go ahead with its plan to remove news from Facebook and Instagram later this year.
While Google has been willing to negotiate with the government, it too has said it will ban Canadian news links from its search engine.
Bill C-18 received royal assent in June, but details about how the regulation will be implemented are still being developed.
In a recent move, the Canadian government signalled a compromise with social media giants by capping compensation, however, many concerns related to the legislation remain unaddressed.
