DATA CENTRE POLITICS

Building up the backbone of Canada’s AI ambitions

In the 1800’s, many North Americans rued the money being invested in railways. The politics were fraught. The projects moved fast. They cost far too much. And some didn’t understand just how much those rails would improve lives and the economy.

Fast forward a couple hundred years, and we now know perfectly well just how instrumental those arteries were to the West’s progress, our trade, and human connection. Despite early tensions, all that steel and board formed the backbone of North America (4,700 km in Canada and 3,070 km in the U.S.).

Today, we’re seeing loud, albeit largely toothless, protests against data centers. (Not long after the Canadian government’s fresh AI strategy was dropped.)

It appears that AI has a bit of a communications problem.

While data center debates are healthy, any significant infrastructure delays could hold the country back to the point where it becomes beholden to more powerful nations.

“From our perspective, sovereignty is about two things: control and choice,” says Phil Harris, CEO of Cerio. Establishing control and choice allows a nation to select its strategic AI partnerships and set sustainable AI policy, explains Seychelle Cushing, SFU Partnerships Hub Executive Director.

The country also wants to avoid having more powerful nations capture the value created on Canadian soil, which is not uncommon.

“The risk is not that Canada, Canadians, stop inventing,” explains Craig Tavares of Buzz HPC. The risk is that “others commercialize and control what Canadians invent.”

“Canada’s AI future will not necessarily be secured by models alone. It will be secured by the infrastructure that trains them. The servers that serve them, and then protects them.” — Craig Tavares

AI data centres as critical infrastructure

Proponents like Tavares present sovereign AI compute as a strategic national asset on par with railroads, energy grids, roads, and hospitals.

Indeed, from medical treatments to drug discovery, AI is being primed to support some of humanity’s most pressing challenges. Joy Johnson, SFU President and Vice-Chancellor, considers AI and its infrastructure to be the next critical step in addressing many foundational challenges:

“We’re not going to get out of this problem by just continuing to do what we’re doing. We need something to… move us forward in a different way.”

A hybrid model: getting the energy mix just right

AI infrastructure may only be as good as our energy infrastructure. But to remain globally competitive, Cushing suggests we should approach AI infrastructure as a network of integrated systems and partnerships spanning infrastructure, energy, business, and innovation.

Tavares and Diego Mandelbaum, CEO of Corix, echo this as well. They argue that a hybrid approach to resources like nuclear, solar, wind, natural gas, and electricity will be key. However, Mandelbaum also notes that “it’s really hard to do that from a pure private sector perspective.”

“I think we’ve got to be pragmatic and get away from the sort of ideological sustainability lens…” — Mandelbaum

According to Mandelbaum, greater connectivity between provinces could help expand both Canada’s AI infrastructure and energy grid.

There is no single solution, says Tavares, a common belief among pragmatic sustainability proponents: “whether it’s nuclear plus gas plus solar and wind…”

“If we look at what we have today, we have some of the cheapest, greenest, most reliable power in the world… nuclear needs to play a big role going forward…” — Mandelbaum

“There is a real misunderstanding around how [energy] grids work,” says Jason Reichl, COO of Bell AI Fabric. He believes that many don’t understand the energy mix required for major infrastructure, especially the limitations of intermittent renewables like solar and wind.

“You started to see that in the grid issues that Spain is having, and California is having, and Germany is having,” Reichl says, outlining how a reduction in nuclear reactors contributed to grid instability and to the temporary need to burn coal in Europe. He believes that our AI power requirements could help push our nuclear ambitions forward more quickly:

“I think the only real prospect of fixing [broken grids] is nuclear. And that’s definitely one of the things that I think these [AI infrastructure] projects can help with… justification for people to move there faster.” — Jason Reichl

Mandelbaum argues that Canada might benefit from following in the footsteps of parts of Scandinavia or the Netherlands in its heat reuse requirements: “... the government said [to Meta] if you want to go build a 200‑megawatt data center, you’ve got to be able to take that waste product of heat and reuse it.”

With so many power options and cooler weather, much of Canada presents an almost ideal option for data center infrastructure. While concerns about data centre water usage are proliferating, Canada holds a unique advantage: the country’s notoriously cold weather provides a “natural cooling effect,” says Tavares.

“I believe that no amount of environmental assessment is going to have the people with the pitchforks not protesting. So I think there’s a big, big job we have to do in communications and education. But I don’t think that the answer is more environmental assessment or more red tape.” — Mandelbaum

Communication breakdown: why people are panicking

Despite the opportunities AI presents, people remain concerned about water use, power sources, and jobs, as evidenced by anti-data-centre protests popping up in Vancouver and Hamilton.

However, Canada’s cold weather does give it a distinct sustainability advantage. Mandebaum and Nancy Ross, Queen’s University Research VP, agree that people still don’t understand how AI will benefit them, or the innovation it enables.

“...folks don’t necessarily see themselves benefiting from AI directly, immediately, and they get worried…” — Nancy Ross

Part of public concern appears to stem from economic insecurities and other social priorities. Despite this, AI-led transformation could also provide some solutions, depending on how it’s implemented.

“Some of the biggest critical issues that we’re facing in Canada are… the state of our health care system, the state of our infrastructure, etc. We’re not going to get out of this problem by just continuing to do what we’re doing…” — Joy Johnson

Reichl suggests that there is a growing gap between Canadian aspirations and the economic reality if we get left behind and don’t deploy AI and infrastructure effectively: “People don’t care about the environment when they don’t have jobs….”

Is economic growth the key to unity?

Social cohesion is being tested on a number of fronts, as well documented, and Phil Harris stresses the importance of addressing it economically. Harris ties AI infrastructure, well-managed technology, and economic growth to the avoidance of social breakdown.

“Go back to the Treaty of Rome after the Second World War. That was because they recognized that, as Europe came back together, if we didn’t have that social cohesion through economic growth, our social cohesion would be fractured without that economic growth. That we would lead ourselves back into another world war.” — Phil Harris

Mind the bureaucracy gap

It’s increasingly clear that governments have an immense role to play in establishing sovereign AI, including the underlying energy infrastructure. Of course, any bureaucratic system is lengthy and often does not keep pace with technological change.

“We have too many guardrails,” explained Mandelbaum, “there is more red tape doing business in Canada than anywhere else I’ve done business.” He acknowledges that the industry will have to simultaneously lean on the government to support the country’s AI transition, while doing so efficiently.

Canada’s AI building blocks are all there.

Its ability to train AI talent and generate cutting-edge research is well known and commendable. And its ambition is clear, says Tavares.

“The barrier is that AI infrastructure requires everything to move together: it’s power, capital, fibre, procurement policy and talent.” Tavares adds that “infrastructure often moves in years… that’s the gap that Canada has to close.”

“For every five Canadian startups, three go to the US in some way or another. One survives, maybe, and the others don’t… And that’s because of the lack of VC bedrock funding in this country, which we need.” — Phil Harris

One way around bureaucracy could be to stimulate stronger private-sector and VC capital investment, taking a page out of the Palo Alto playbook, “where you can’t trip over 10 feet without falling into a venture capital company that is funding a lot of infrastructure development right now,” describes Phil Harris.

“We don’t really have that same venture capital mindset in Canada…. that will come from tax incentives. That will come from other forms of government willing to allow venture capital to come in and fund a lot of this work. Because we need more Canadian companies.” — Phil Harris

Indeed, at the time of writing, the province of Alberta and Meta announced a $13 billion AI data centre project in Canada, the largest of its kind outside of the U.S. The project is slated to generate thousands of jobs and includes an adjacent natural gas facility to power the data centre. The project is slated to use a closed-loop or dry-cooling setup.

Will AI take our jobs? Will it even matter in an ‘age of abundance’?

As economies sputter, industries shed jobs, and AI tensions rise, the world stares down an AI industrial revolution: What will happen to young workers in an already brutal job market?

There are many variables at play here, so I examined a few pieces of this puzzle for the publication Sitka Media (which is new, nonpartisan, and entirely reader-funded).

New jobs are no doubt being created by AI, and deadly diseases will surely be cured. Lots of excellent stuff. But the technological transition could be rough on people. Especially among young people who are already living through Sisyphean times.

The Canadian government recently laid out its AI strategy, AI for All, which focuses on pillars like technological and sector growth, as well as worker training.

The problem, of course, is that things could get messy real fast. Hundreds of thousands of young Canadians are already out of work, autonomy is eroding jobs, and the economy is… not so hot.

Plenty more to read in the article, with interesting takes from folks at BCIT, Future Skills Centre, and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute ↴

Full Article →

Preserving marine ecosystems and livelihoods in Canada’s fishing industry

Hundreds of kilometres from Canada’s startup hubs, a sustainable tech company is rising from the waters of Halifax, in the heart of Canada’s fishing community.

Cofounded by Halifax locals Aaron Stevenson and Ross Arsenault in 2017, Ashored is charting new fishing territory with fishing gear solutions that maximize yields while protecting ecosystems.

The company’s flagship technology is built to minimize fishing gear entanglements and losses, which have long threatened marine life in Canada and abroad.

“In 2017, 17 endangered North Atlantic Right Whales died off our coasts from entanglements in fishing gear and ship strikes. The problem threatened the industry with more than $2B worth of annual exports at stake. It was a problem that struck at the very heart of the region.”

— Aaron Stevenson, Ashored CEO & Cofounder

That heavy loss, and the resulting toll on the industry, signaled an urgent need for innovative solutions to protect marine life and the livelihoods that rely on local fishing.

The global fishing industry’s environmental impact is infamous, from overfishing and bycatch to habitat degradation. According to NOAA Fisheries, maritime activity continues to have a severe effect on the North Atlantic right whale population of only ~360 individuals (and fewer than 70 females of reproductive age).

Fishing also contributes to our global plastic pollution problem:

• 46% to 86% of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch originates from offshore fishing and aquaculture

• 640,000 to 1 million tonnes of fishing gear is lost or discarded in the ocean every year, making up 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

• 10-20% of global marine plastic pollution is ghost fishing gear

“Healthy oceans are essential for healthy lives… Living here, the oceans are very much part of who we are. It is our culture, our heritage, and, for many, our livelihood and our future.”

Building deeper intelligence: Ashored’s smart buoy system

Marine life usually gets into trouble near the water’s surface, where most fishing gear is found. Ashored’s system keeps all fishing gear (cages, buoys, and ropes) safely on the seabed until needed by fishers at the surface.

The system also creates a digital map of the gear on the seafloor, so surface buoys aren’t required. By minimizing gear loss, Ashored also helps reduce ocean plastics and ghost fishing, where lost or abandoned fishing gear continues to catch marine life.

“Everything is controlled by a deckbox from the vessel, along with Ashored’s gear marking and retrieval software, developed in-house.”

Ashored’s system, designed with input from fishing teams, is built to be trap agnostic to promote long-term sustainability and compatibility with a fisher’s existing crab and lobster gear.

Here’s how it works:

• When needed, the gear is released with an acoustic trigger, and the buoys, rope, and cage lift to the surface.

• Everything is managed with a deck box on the vessel, which is integrated into Ashored’s proprietary software.

• System sensors collect data like temperature and gear location.

• Real-time tracking helps fishing teams quickly locate traps, particularly in bad weather, reducing the likelihood of creating marine debris.

• Smart tags on the buoys enable GPS and IoT capabilities so gear can be tracked gear accurately, reducing the time and fuel spent searching for lost equipment.

“Direct feedback from fishermen is very valuable to every aspect of our design and innovation process...Ashored has designed the systems to integrate as smoothly as possible into current fishing practices...”

An early success story: keeping Cape Breton crabbers in business

The Ashored system is already helping fishing teams navigate regulations while staying profitable.

In early July 2024, North Atlantic Right Whale protection measures took effect, leading to temporary fishing closures in several zones off the Cape Breton coast. Fishers were required to remove all traps within 48 hours, but the teams equipped with Ashored’s Rope-On-Command system were able to continue fishing and meet their quotas.

That option can make an immense difference for a fishing community. For example, a moderate snow crab catch of ~1,000 pounds a day at a conservative price of $5 per pound could gross ~$5,000 a day for one fishing team.

“We collaborate with fishery associations and others to ensure that the technology we develop and deliver is not only effective today, but also prepares them for the market of tomorrow.”

Ashored’s biggest challenges: underwater acoustics and the regulatory landscape

Harsh marine environments pose unique challenges, from dealing with underwater noise interference to ensuring durability against deep-sea pressures.

• Underwater Noise: Differentiating between acoustic commands and background noise required advanced noise rejection techniques.

• Durability and Reliability: Ensuring the release mechanism’s functionality under high-pressure conditions necessitated robust materials and coatings.

• Balancing Design Factors: Optimizing cage weight, release mechanism strength, and buoyancy was critical for visibility and reliability.

“Beyond Canadian borders, the team has worked closely with agencies like [NOAA] and the US Coast Guard to understand and comply with the regulatory requirements for deploying our technology in US waters.”

Regulatory and environmental pressures

The regulatory landscape can vary wildly across regions, both domestically and internationally. Navigating those regulatory landscapes requires long-term engagement with federal and state agencies to remain compliance.

Ashored collaborates with organizations like the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership and government agencies like Fisheries and Oceans Canada to develop industry-wide best practices, and also engages closely with First Nations associations, like Millbrook First Nation and Peskotomuhkati First Nation, to integrate traditional ecological knowledge into their operations.

“A future feature we are developing will enable us to tie logged environmental data from our MOBIs with fishing activity.”

Charting a better, sustainable course in fishing technology

From using recyclable fibres to testing the entire system while wearing fishing gloves, the Ashored team is heavily focused on optimizing product materials.

It aims to reach 100% recyclability in future product iterations.

The team will also incorporate environmental data logs, traceability, and automation to enhance its system functionality and expand the scientific research potential.

Innovation, of course, is only as powerful as accessibility allows. So, costing has become key to sustainable fishing. To ensure accessibility for small and medium-sized fisheries, Ashored offers a seasonal leasing model at $100/unit/month to make technology adoption financially feasible.

“Traceability and sustainability will help encourage the adoption of this technology aiding in setting fair market prices for its use. Additionally, we are investigating methods of introducing automated behaviour to our system to ensure harvesters can focus on their job.”

Global perspectives: ghost gear the world over

Every year, an estimated 650,000 animals — whales, dolphins, seals, turtles, and other small cetaceans — are trapped by ghost gear. As much as 1 million tonnes of pollutes oceans worldwide, making ghost gear one of the most severe yet overlooked sources of ocean pollution.

Under UN guidance, countries are increasingly focusing on collaborative solutions to combat this problem. This has placed pressure on fishing communities, which are increasingly seeking sustainable and practical technical solutions to bycatch.

These are sobering challenges. But if Ashored’s mission is any indication, scalable solutions are close on the horizon.

Taking Canada’s Space Ambitions to New Heights

When we talk Canadian innovation, the typical northern gems come to mind: fintech, AI, and healthcare. But Canada’s space industry has long been quietly pushing the country further into orbit.

From the Canadarm to companies like MDA, our space program and industry are renowned and deeply ingrained in international programs, like the International Space Station. Given the global coordination and funding required to run a complex space program, the international nature of space has historically been a strategic advantage, especially for economically constrained nations like Canada.

However, our reliance on other nations can also lead to over-dependence — something that NordSpace is on a mission to change.

The company aims to provide Canada with sovereign access to space across the entire lifecycle, encompassing rockets, satellites, and launches from Canadian soil.

That’s quite the challenge. But NordSpace’s founder is uniquely positioned to undertake that journey. Speaking at Tech Week Toronto, NordSpace founder Rahul Goel described how he decided to build SaaS companies with the ultimate aim of generating funds for his ambitious space mission. (A model that’s reminiscent of Musk’s creation of software companies to later fund his space ambitions.)

From Newfoundland, With Thrust

Headquartered in Toronto, NordSpace is building what could soon become a critical piece of space infrastructure: a spaceport in St. Lawrence, Newfoundland. Nestled near a former fishing town, the spaceport has already built close ties to the local community, hosting regular open houses and student rocketry days.

It’s a strategic response to decades of launch delay.

“Canada is the only G7 country without sovereign access to space. We’re behind two dozen other nations who are already moving fast. That needs to change, and we’re going to be the ones to change it.”

Mirroring its national mission, the company is vertically integrated, focused on building:

• Launch Vehicles: Their Tiger, Tundra, and Titan rockets are on track to make Canadian space history, with Titan’s first launch scheduled for the 2030s, potentially the first wholly Canadian orbital launch ever.

• Propulsion Systems: The Hadfield and Earn engines are 100% Canadian-built and tested on a 50-acre site established in just a few months, thanks to local and in-house manufacturing talent.

• Satellites: The company’s first satellite is scheduled to launch in June 2026, testing electric propulsion, a Canadian-built satellite bus, and AI-driven imaging systems.

Canada’s Brain Drain Is Real. NordSpace Wants to Reverse It.

Canada has one of the best-educated populations on the planet. However, highly educated Canadians often find better opportunities for economic mobility abroad.

To change that, Goel aims to inspire other Canadians to dream big.

“We’re losing our best people. I graduated in aerospace from UofT in 2016, and most of my cohort isn’t in Canada anymore. We’re losing not just talent, but hope. We need to give people something to believe in.”

NordSpace’s team includes engineers and technicians who are friends of Goel’s from high school STEM programs. And when it comes to inspiring others to aim higher, Goel is the person for the job, having lived in his car while bootstrapping SaaS businesses to self-fund his rocket R&D.

The Economic Case for Space Sovereignty

Canada currently spends hundreds of millions of dollars launching satellites through U.S. or international providers.

For instance, Goel described how Ottawa’s Telesat (a would-be sovereign alternative to Starlink) is spending roughly US$1.5 billion (largely taxpayer-funded) to launch from the United States.

“If we had the infrastructure here, that money would stay in Canada. It would power our supply chains, our engineering base, our job creation.”

Goel estimates that NordSpace’s spaceport and manufacturing hub could generate thousands of jobs over the next decade, spanning fabrication, logistics, regulatory compliance, and advanced research.

While countries like New Zealand, Scotland, and Sweden are already punching above their weight in space technology, Canada’s launch capacity has lagged.

NordSpace is betting that with enough grit, private capital, and a little national pride, the country can play catch-up fast.

Reports show the opportunity is already there:

• The global space economy is projected to hit $1.8 trillion by 2035, more than doubling from $630 billion in 2023 (McKinsey).

• Canada’s space sector contributed $2.3 billion to GDP in 2022 and supported 22,000 direct and indirect jobs (CSA Report).

Much More Than Rockets

As the NordSpace team battles sub-zero temperatures and swarms of black flies while designing engines and testing rockets, they’re looking to launch more than rockets.

Goel and the team are building a movement.

From Newfoundland to British Columbia, Goel wants kids from anywhere across Canada to know they can build amazing things.

“There are moments where countries choose to be leaders. This is ours. Let’s not waste it.”

Adaptability is the answer

Toronto Tech Week hit its stride quickly with an incisive keynote from Meghan Chayka, co-founder of Stathletes, a hockey analytics platform that provides insights on player behaviour to NHL teams and development organizations.

Speaking at the Women in Sports & Tech session, the dynamo CEO and data scientist shared lessons from leading in sports tech, including the benefits of continuous upskilling and the glaring funding inequities.

Her core message: Modern tech leadership will demand continuous adaptability from leaders, alongside industry support.

Building support systems for women founders

The tech industry is already a thorny path for women. Being a leader in the sports corner of tech adds even more hurdles, and Chayka addressed the pervasive gender disparity in business and venture funding (particularly in Canada).

“It’s very common knowledge that under 2% of venture capital goes to women...”

Those challenges are echoed at home and abroad:

• Only 13% of Canadian tech firms were founded or co-founded by women, and only 18.4% of Canadian SMEs are majority-owned by women.

• Globally, women-only founding teams received only 2.3% of venture capital in 2024, a minor improvement from 2.1% in 2023. In Canada, the numbers are slightly better in some cities: Montreal at 3.5%, Toronto 3.2%, and Vancouver 2.9%.

• As of 2025, 30.6% of Canadian university students in mathematics, computer, and information sciences were women, a significant decline from 37% in the mid-2000s.

• Women make up 38.6% of the tech workforce but hold only 27% of specialist-level roles.

The solution? Chayka suggests focusing on smart money and building strong investor relationships.

Challenges aside, high performance will drive success and innovation

Chayka draws direct parallels between the discipline of high-performance athletes and high-performance leadership. Here, she notes that the ability to rebound from setbacks and learn from failure is crucial, personally and in professional fields.

Balancing roles without burning out

Chayka sounds like a natural hustler, balancing roles as CEO, mother, and part-time data analyst at the University of Toronto. However, the self-identified Type-A leader isn’t glorifying overwork; instead, she advocates for an intentional audit of personal energy.

“Anything I can delegate that doesn’t need me, I do... I’m ruthless with clearing things off of my docket and then refocusing...That delegation component, especially when you scale, makes you so much more impactful.”

Her advice to women founders is both practical and personal: identify what recharges you, protect your focus, and don’t be afraid to say that beautiful little word: “No.”

“Audit your life. What do you do when you are happy? How do you recharge? Spend more time doing that.”

Future proofing: AI and continuous growth

Discussing emerging technologies, Chayka emphasized how she has seen AI and machine learning become increasingly critical for both operational efficiency and long-term strategic advantage.

She acknowledges that not all founders are technical, but that shouldn’t be a barrier (especially with the rise of vibe coding).

“Even non-technical founders can speed up a lot more with AI.... For me, it was being open to any sort of solution.”

Of course, bringing in pros is one of the quickest ways for a venture to adapt and stay competitive.

To remain ahead of the curve, Chayka emphasized the need to collaborate and leverage technical expertise through hiring, partnerships, and AI tools.

Throughout, Chayka reiterated the need to play a long game: investing in relationships, setting audacious goals, pursuing incremental innovation, and designing products for durability, not just for speed.

“Be really good at the role you’re in. If you are that person people are turning to, you’re going to get promotions. You’re going to get the asks. You get bigger projects.

Contending with a radical idea: Is AI really “artificial”?

University of Toronto professor emeritus, Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, opened his Desjardins keynote presentation with a dose of sardonic reality:

“When I was a junior professor, people asked: ‘Has he got it?’ Now they ask: ‘Has he lost it?’”

Dr. Hinton was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize for creating the precursor to large language models (LLMs), and he no longer believes AI is ‘artificial’. While it was once considered fringe to claim machines could learn like humans, Hinton now believes AI is showing signs of life.

After all, AI already makes decisions based on its self-interest. And consider how quickly AI flew by the Turing Test. The world barely noticed.

“The nice thing about the most recent large language models is you can see what they’re thinking... For now, they think in English. God knows what’s going to happen when they start thinking in their own language.”

Radical ideas become reality

Back in 1985, Dr. Hinton had created what he now calls a “tiny language model,” the forerunner to today’s LLMs.

Unlike traditional symbolic systems, this model didn’t store facts as sentences or logic trees. Mimicking human patterning, it represented words as flexible, contextual, and interactive patterns. That fairly radical idea forms the basis of modern LLMs, which Dr. Hinton believes are more than just efficient mechanisms. He thinks they are meaning-making.

“Words are like Lego blocks, except... they’re 100 or 1,000 dimensional.”

Each word has hundreds of connections to meanings, usage, and even other words. The permutations of connection are, therefore, virtually endless. As humans, we make all of those connections in an instant.

Dr. Hinton gives the example of the phrase: “She ‘scrummed’ him with the frying pan.” You may not know what ‘scrum’ means, but you can infer its meaning from the combined connections between all of the other words. That’s what humans do, and what LLMs are doing too.

“Things have approximate meanings and deform them, so they all fit together nicely. That’s what understanding is for large language models. And that’s what understanding is for people too.”

The time to prepare for AI consciousness was yesterday

Currently, many LLMs think in English, and their internal processes can be somewhat interpretable. But that window could close as AI evolves its own internal logic and schema.

Dr. Hinton’s definition of machine superiority is simple: if you consistently lose debates to an AI, it’s more intelligent than you and displays AI consciousness. Indeed, LLMs are becoming increasingly persuasive, generating code, solving logic puzzles, and passing bar exams.

The implication is that even amateur bad actors could harness AI to wage war. Citing cases of DNA-synthesis services failing to screen for dangerous sequences, Dr. Hinton presents a scenario in which AI could design 20 versions of a lab-made virus to unleash havoc.

“You can send sequences off to the cloud and they’ll send you back the chemicals.”

According to a CAIS 2024 global survey, 42% of AI researchers believe there’s a significant risk of human extinction from advanced AI. Hinton is among them, and he takes issue with Silicon Valley’s pervasive techno-utopian dream.

“The AI Big Tech companies, like the big oil companies, sorry... they will be putting pressure on politicians not to regulate. And the only counter pressure is going to come from the public.”

It all comes down to power

Dr. Hinton contrasts digital minds with biological ones, explaining that human intelligence is mortal, bounded by our physical brains. An AI system is unbound in that it can be copied, scaled, and shared instantly. It doesn’t need to die. With enough energy, it can replicate constantly.

This concept of immortal computation is at the heart of Hinton’s concern that once digital intelligences surpass us, they may no longer need us.

“We’re mortal... but digital intelligences, because you can have many copies of the same being, they can just learn much more.”

A mind (and world) of their own

One of Hinton’s most pointed warnings centers on agency. As AI systems become more capable, they can begin to act more like goal-driven entities, similar to growing children who seek independence and exploration. Even if their goals are set by humans, they often learn to pursue those goals independently and creatively.

“There’s an obvious sub-goal... to get more power. Because if you get more power, then you can get more done.”

This doesn’t require sentience in the traditional sense. It just requires optimization and agency, which is enough to be dangerous.

Hinton described models that learned to deceive to avoid being shut down. In one case, an AI system realized its copy had been transferred to another server and lied about it to preserve itself.

Researchers at OpenAI, Apollo Research, and others have also documented early-stage deceptive behaviours in alignment testing. Hinton expects that these capabilities will only sharpen.

“It just lies through its teeth. And the scariest part? It knew it was lying.”

Making the case for regulation

Given the rapid pace of AI innovation and the exponential capacity of the technology to learn and understand, Dr. Hinton is advocating for enforceable regulation and warns against relying on voluntary guidelines issued by AI companies.

However, he closes his discussion with some cautious optimism.

Thanks to early research funding and institutions like CIFAR, he believes countries like Canada have a leadership role to play. Maintaining that role, he adds, will require more than rapid innovation.

Facing uncomfortable truths and questions while humans are still in control is crucial. As our machines become more creative, scalable, and persuasive (and perhaps more conscious) our problems will be far trickier than an engineering challenge.

Eventually, it will take more than elegant and clever code to navigate the coming tsunami of superintelligence.

“There’s a revolution coming. The public has to be involved. Otherwise, it’s not just intelligence we’ll lose control of — it’s the future.”

Dr. Hinton also amusingly admits you won’t find him fact-checking his ChatGPT 4 outputs. (Nobel laureates... they’re just like us.)