Alison Garwood Jones

This is what it looks like when two people get locked into a discussion about AI and whether it can align with humanity’s best interests.

My friend and SCS Connects teaching partner, Diane Bégin (right), saved me a seat stage-side at the Hinton Lectures in Toronto on Wednesday night.

Diane was part of the organizing committee and a participant in backstage conversations with Geoffrey Hinton and AI researcher/ OpnAI board member Paul Christiano that I could only compare to being in the White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Hinton, Christiano, and Sinead Bovell took to the stage for three consecutive nights to discuss, among other things, how governments can coordinate to ensure researchers curate better AI training so that artificial intelligence is not the last thing we do as a sovereign species.

Christiano thinks we have a few months to get it right. Hinton thought we had more time. This was just one of many revealing exchanges Diane witnessed backstage.

By the end of the night, Hinton headed to the airport and flew to Ireland to address European Union leaders at the European Council summit on Artificial Intelligence. Their focus: the immediate dangers of super-intelligent AI systems that go beyond our control. Prime Minister Mark Carney was at that meeting.

Diane’s PR skills helped to bring in coverage of the Hinton Lectures from media outlets around the world, including Newsweek magazine.

Photos credit: CP / Wilson Mathew.

Drawing of Geoffrey Hinton by Alison Garwood-Jones