Servers inside OVHcloud's data centre in Roubaix, northern France, in April, 2025.SAMEER AL-DOUMY/AFP/Getty Images
Talk of massive, energy-hungry data centres spreading fast in Alberta and beyond. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s controversial $2-billion plan for AI to juice GDP and job growth. Global tech behemoths slashing Canadian jobs, citing AI efficiency drives. Endless forecasts of exponential productivity gains and hyperbolic profits, leading to predictions of mass unemployment and dwindling natural resources.
With so many conflicting AI narratives swirling, how can you separate fact from science fiction?
First, tune out all hysteria – whether it’s AI advocates’ adulation or pessimists’ prophecies. AI’s future actually remains largely unknown even to supposed “experts.” In November, I told you artificial intelligence hadn’t caused any overall stock market bubble – which is still true. But buying or selling investments based on AI speculation or IPO heat is pure arrogance. With all possibilities overhyped, knowing something others don’t is impossible.
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Forecasting the future of economies or entire industries based on far-flung (often dystopian) AI theories is folly. Yet many try and will continue to. Speculators predict fast, vast change – often negative. AI is among businesses’ top-10 cited reasons for recent layoffs. Some say fintech Block cut half its jobs this year – including positions in Toronto – to optimize AI. Meta, Amazon and others’ layoffs in Canada and globally stoke similar claims.
Pain is real for those laid off. But economically, doomsayers overreach. Their mistake: thinking innovation destroys but doesn’t also create concurrently. Such thinking permeates history. In the early 1980s, economists warned computers would displace masses of workers. Robots would take over while people sat idle in a societal surges of sloth. Didn’t happen. Jobs changed, workers learned new skills.
So it will be with AI. Heightened demand for AI-savvy workers spurs retraining and expanded hiring, not permanent, mass unemployment. A Robert Half survey found about a third of Canadian firms that made AI-driven layoffs are now rehiring for similar positions. Why? They underestimated the value of human judgment and oversight.
Actually, AI’s share of layoffs is tiny – and likely overinflated. Reality: Block’s stock plummeted hugely in recent years. It, Meta, Amazon and others vastly overhired after the pandemic. They use AI partly as cover.
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Futurists overrate the speed of big changes. Take the internet. First came clunky dial-up access on boxy desktops. Then broadband and wireless internet and affordable laptops. Then smartphones and the explosion of social media, video conferencing, mobile payments, delivery services and more. It all took decades – and keeps evolving.
Canada’s data centres – particularly the much larger in-the-pipeline versions – spur justified concerns. Research from York University found that more than 90 per cent of new centres are slated for Alberta, raising electricity cost and capacity concerns. Water management and land displacement fears abound, too. But chip shortages and regional pushback – such as protests in Vancouver, Regina and beyond – limit the pace of rollouts to far slower than recently hoped or feared.
AI surely changes some industries greatly. Others, less so. Can it improve poutine? Or duct tape? Can it frame a home or fix your plumbing? It may help streamline logistics for transporting and storing those. But beyond that?
Big technological changes seldom include either/or scenarios. Smartphone-based food delivery services such as Skip exploded while grocery and restaurant sales kept growing. Big-box stores changed retailing. Then online retailing did. Yet many small shops thrive alongside bustling shopping centres like the massive West Edmonton Mall or Square One in Mississauga.
AI will likely overhaul much of our world … eventually. Eventually, it will enable young lawyers to ditch rote tasks for more productive work. Transportation and logistics firms will benefit, too. Eventually, driverless cabs should mitigate global driver shortages. Self-driving cars should eventually proliferate, giving blind and disabled folks previously unfathomable independence.
AI will also aid Canada’s big banks. But replace everyone? No! How many retirees will entrust their life savings to a liability-free bot? Customers don’t just want expertise. They also want responsibility. Good luck getting an AI provider to take responsibility if their chatbot botches your tax filing. Data privacy is a massive challenge, too.
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Aging populations need AI’s upcoming health care efficiencies. Globally, AI tools help more older folks live at home despite nursing shortages. Apps detecting falls and vital sign changes – such as Toronto-based CHAH AI Care – help families juggling work and caregiving.
Efficiency is good. But no great company ever changed the world by counting more beans with fewer people. All ascended by doing hugely popular, never-yet-done things. Great companies see a problem, develop unfathomed solutions and create a life-changing outcome. AI’s strength isn’t cutting headcount but augmenting it. That is already happening in factories, call centres and elsewhere. Expect more.
AI won’t replace human ingenuity any time soon. Doomers’ fears of endless job cuts, plummeting consumption and AI reliance creating a human wasteland are hyperbole. Big change will come, but not so fast. Stay calmly level-headed.
Ken Fisher is the founder, executive chair and co-chief investment officer of Fisher Investments.