Schmidt Sciences has named SRI Chair Roger Grosse and Faculty Affiliate Marzyeh Ghassemi to its 2024 cohort of AI2050 Fellows. The program funds senior researchers and early career scholars to address a wide range of global challenges in AI.

What does safe artificial intelligence look like? Could AI go rogue and pose an existential threat to humanity? These were among the pressing questions tackled by SRI experts during a recent panel discussion on AI safety.

The SRI Seminar Series returns for fall 2024 with leading experts across various fields, including computer science, communications, law, healthcare, and philosophy. Seminars will explore new questions at the intersection of technology and society through critical issues such as trust, inequality, public policy, and the ethical implications of AI systems.

In April 2024, the Government of Canada pledged $2.4bn toward AI in its annual budget, including $50m for a new AI Safety Institute. What scope, expertise, and authority will the new institute need to achieve its full potential? We examine the early approaches of similar institutes in the UK, US, and EU.

Griefbots are artificial intelligence programs designed to mimic deceased individuals by using their digital footprint. Griefbots raise significant concerns about data collection and implications to human dignity. This article explores the digital afterlife industry and the ethical and legal challenges it presents, including a consideration of health, privacy, and property laws in Canada.

A new report from SRI Research Lead Beth Coleman, SRI Graduate Fellow Madison Mackley, and collaborators explores questions such as: How can we facilitate data-sharing across divisions to improve public policy and service delivery? What are the risks of data-sharing, how can we mitigate those risks, and what are the potential benefits of doing it right?

Although foreign interference did not impact the results of Canadian elections in 2019 and 2021, it ‘stained’ the electoral process, undermining public confidence in Canada’s democratic institutions. What measures does Bill C-70 (“An Act respecting countering foreign interference”) take to bolster Canadian confidence in elections? And how might it apply to the use of AI in our elections?

The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society is proud to welcome four new faculty fellows and 15 graduate fellows from across the University of Toronto. SRI fellowships support interdisciplinary research projects that build new approaches to examine the complex relations between technology and society.

We hear certain terminology used frequently in efforts to regulate artificial intelligence. But what do we mean when we talk about “safety” and “trust”? Are advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems a threat to our sense of safety and security? Can we trust AI systems to perform increasingly critical roles in society? Precise and useful understandings of these terms across diverse contexts are a crucial step toward effective policymaking.

How can we help people recognize AI-generated images? Can we prevent copyrighted materials from being used in training data? What’s going on in the new field of forensic analysis of ML systems? These and related topics were at the centre of the 2024 Secure and Trustworthy Machine Learning (SaTML) conference in Toronto. Read the highlights.

SRI Faculty Affiliate Nicolas Papernot is using a protocol borrowed from cryptography to develop a technical framework in preparation for possible AI regulation. For this multidisciplinary collaborative project that also includes SRI researcher Lisa Austin, Papernot received an AI2050 Schmidt Sciences Early Career fellowship.

A new report report shares findings on opinions about artificial intelligence (AI) in 21 countries. GPO-AI reveals varying, diverse and region-specific attitudes about the use of artificial intelligence, and topics of focus in the survey include job loss, deepfakes, and state regulation. The project was led by SRI Associate Director Peter Loewen, and features contributions from SRI Graduate Fellow Blake Lee-Whiting.