Cory Doctorow Debates AI Risks with Turing Prize Winner Yoshua Bengio at Montreal Lecture
Author Cory Doctorow recently debated AI risks with Turing Prize winner Yoshua Bengio at the Bronfman Lecture in Montreal. Doctorow argued that current AI concerns distract from existing threats posed by corporations and authoritarian states. He dismissed fears of superhuman AI as a modern Pascal's wager, questioning when such investments would stop. Bengio leads the Lawzero initiative to create open, auditable AI as a digital public good to mitigate civilizational risks. Doctorow worries more about AI-driven job losses, corporate bankruptcies, and the erosion of process knowledge. He compared AI to asbestos in civilization's walls, with descendants digging it out for generations. The event was moderated by CBC Ideas host Nahlah Ayed and included activist Astra Taylor. Doctorow proposed building international digital public goods now to counter existing corporate threats, potentially averting future AI dangers.
Key facts
- Cory Doctorow debated Yoshua Bengio at the Bronfman Lecture in Montreal
- Bengio co-won the Turing Prize for deep learning work
- Bengio leads the Lawzero initiative for open, auditable AI
- Doctorow compared AI risk concerns to Pascal's wager
- Over $1.4 trillion has been invested in AI development
- Doctorow worries about AI replacing jobs and corporate bankruptcies
- The event was moderated by CBC Ideas host Nahlah Ayed
- Astra Taylor also participated in the panel discussion
Entities
Artists
- Cory Doctorow
- Yoshua Bengio
- Astra Taylor
- Nahlah Ayed
- Sam Altman
- Elon Musk
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Bernie Sanders
- Ron Wyden
- Charlie Kirk
- Tyler Robinson
- Viktor Orbán
- Sarah Jeong
- Tochi Onyibuchi
- Alia Dastagir
- Cindy Cohn
- Matthew Potolsky
- Rebecca Giblin
- Joey DeVilla
Institutions
- Bronfman Lecture
- CBC Ideas
- Lawzero
- S&P 500
- CBC The National
- Ontario Today
- City Lights
- This Week in Tech
- University of Utah
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Tor Books
- Head of Zeus
- Verso
- Book Soup
- Beacon Press
- Scribe
- Firstsecond
- Creative Commons
- DemocracyXchange
- Berkeley Spring Forum
- London South Bank University
- Global Justice Now
- Commonweal Ventures
- PEN World Voices
- Re:publica
- Otherland Books
- HowTheLightGetsIn
- SXSW London
- The Strand
- Locus
- Eventbrite
- PCMag
- Prospect
- Worse On Purpose
- Byline Times
- Hamilton Nolan
- ProPublica
- The Atlantic
- Bloomberg
- Business Insider
- Wired
- The Guardian
- Techdirt
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Locations
- Montreal
- Canada
- Toronto
- San Francisco
- United States
- London
- United Kingdom
- Berlin
- Germany
- New York City
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- Brussels
- Belgium
- Ohio
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- Denmark
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- Switzerland