Oh wait, this time it’s not just AI, it’s the researchers, personally! Canadian Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship department can see right through this and will not let AI researchers steal Canadian jobs:

Mwiza Simbeye, who is from Zambia and is currently a Google research intern based in New York, was denied a visa to attend NeurIPS in Montreal last year. He says that in its denial letter, the Canadian embassy told him they were “not satisfied” that he would leave Canada once the conference was over.

And Mwiza is by no means alone, there’s dozens of them. I must admit I frowned when ACl announced they would have 2020 in Seattle, given how hard it’s to travel there for scientists of inappropriate religions, but this shows the grass may not be much greener elsewhere.