Geoffrey Hinton

Nobel Prize

Physics

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

A U of T University Professor Emeritus, Hinton shared the honour with Princeton University's John J. Hopfield for discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks

Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus of computer science at the �ؿ�ζSM, has won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Widely regarded as the “godfather of AI,” Hinton shared the prize with John J. Hopfield of Princeton University for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.

Hinton said he was “flabbergasted” at the honour as messages poured in from around the world.

“I had no expectations of this,” he told U of T News shortly after the win was announced in Stockholm Tuesday morning. “I am extremely surprised and I'm honoured to be included.”

He later told reporters at a press conference he was “in a cheap hotel in California” with no Internet and a poor phone connection when he was notified about his Nobel Prize.

“I was going to get an MRI scan today, but I think I’m going to have to cancel that.”

Hinton and Hopfield are credited with wielding tools from physics to advance basic research in the field. Specifically, Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images in data, while Hinton invented a way to find properties in data and perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

“On behalf of the �ؿ�ζSM, I am absolutely delighted to congratulate University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton on receiving the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “The U of T community is immensely proud of his historic accomplishment.”

Hinton was selected for the high-profile award for his use of the Hopfield network – invented by his co-laureate – as the foundation for a new network called the Boltzmann machine that can learn to recognize elements within a given type of data.

The Boltzmann machine can classify images and generate new examples of the pattern on which it was trained, with Hinton and his graduate students later building on this work to help usher in today’s rapid development of machine learning – a technology that now underpins a host of applications ranging from large language models such as ChatGPT to self-driving cars.

Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

“The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit. In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties,” said Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

The win by Hinton and Hopfield was covered by media and other organizations around the globe, with The New York Times describing the Nobel committee’s decision as “an acknowledgement of AI’s growing significance in the way people live and work,” and the prestigious journal Nature noting Hinton’s innovations now “form the basis of many state-of-the-art AI tools.”

Hinton joined U of T as a professor of computer science in 1987 after working in various universities in the U.K., where he was born, and in the United States. He went on to be named a University Professor – U of T’s highest academic appointment – in 2006.

Driven by a desire to understand the human brain, Hinton and his graduate students built on his early efforts with an array of developments that paved the way for an explosion in deep learning. One of the first cohort of researchers supported by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Hinton’s work helped catapult Canada to its current status as a global leader in AI development.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobel Prize in Physics, noted Hinton persisted with his research even as the scientific community lost interest in artificial neural networks during the 1990s, and ultimately “helped start the new explosion of exciting results” in the 2000s.

Hinton, for his part, said during a U of T press conference Tuesday evening that his achievements wouldn’t have been possible without support for curiosity-based research – something he said Canada was good at.

He added that his shock at winning the Nobel stemmed from the fact that, while his work has drawn on statistical physics, he isn’t a physicist himself – and even “dropped out of physics after my first year in university because I couldn’t do the complicated math.”

He also said that he plans to donate the money associated with the prize to various charities, including one that provides jobs for neurodiverse young adults.

Hinton likened the influence of AI to that of the Industrial Revolution during a virtual press conference with the academy earlier in the day – “But instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it’s going to exceed people in intellectual ability.”

He added that the rise of AI “is going to be wonderful in many respects,” citing health care and workplace productivity as two areas poised to benefit hugely from the technology. “But we also have to worry about a number of possible bad consequences, particularly the threat of these things getting out of control,” Hinton said.

In early 2023, Hinton quit his job at Google and focused on sounding the alarm about the risks of rapid and unfettered AI development. He outlined his reasoning in a 46-minute U of T video last year, urging young researchers to focus their efforts on the emerging field of AI safety – a message he repeated in media interviews following his Nobel win.

He has continued to tackle the issue at lectures and public appearances around the world, including at U of T and at Cambridge University, his alma mater.

“I am thrilled Geoffrey Hinton, an esteemed colleague and dear friend has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics,” said Melanie Woodin, dean of U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science.

“Geoff is an historic visionary whose groundbreaking work in deep learning and neural networks has made U of T and the Toronto region a leading global centre for AI. And it speaks volumes about his integrity that while he helped lay the foundation for the artificial intelligence revolution, he is also one of the leading voices urging that we develop this technology responsibly and ethically.”

Similarly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lauded Hinton for his efforts to realize responsible AI development, releasing a statement and writing on X: “Geoffrey, we’re glad to have a mind like yours developing safe and responsible AI for the world.”

Geoffrey Hinton delivers a lecture about responsible AI to U of T students and faculty (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Hinton, who is co-founder and chief scientific adviser at the Vector Institute in Toronto, joins an illustrious list of past Nobel Prize in Physics winners that includes Albert Einstein and Marie Curie (who also won a Nobel in chemistry). The prestigious award is the latest in a long list of accolades for Hinton. They include the Association for Computing Machinery’s A.M. Turing Award – widely considered “the Nobel Prize of computing” – in 2019 alongside collaborators Yann LeCun and Yoshua Bengio.

Hinton is the fourth U of T faculty member to win a Nobel Prize over the years.

Sir Frederick Banting and J.J.R Macleod won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work with Charles Best in 1923 to isolate insulin. In 1986, John Polanyi was one of three winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of the new field of reaction dynamics.

Other members of the U of T community, including several alumni, have received or been associated with the international honour.

Oliver Smithies, a past professor at U of T, was a joint winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 for discovering the “principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.”

Also in 2007, Professor Robert Jefferies shared in the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in which he was a key Canadian representative as an international leader in arctic science and global change biology.

In 1999, U of T Professor James Orbinski accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Doctors Without Borders, which was recognized for its humanitarian work.

Anti-nuclear activist and U of T alumna Setsuko Thurlow accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway in 2017 on behalf the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

In 2001, Michael Spence, an alumnus of �ؿ�ζSM Schools, was one of three joint winners of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his contributions to analyses of markets with asymmetrical information.

Bertram Brockhouse, who completed two degrees at U of T, was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1994 for the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter.

Arthur Schawlow, an alumnus, was one of three winners of the same prize in 1981 for his contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy.

In 1998, U of T alumnus Walter Kohn was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for development of the density-functional theory.

Former Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, who received a bachelor’s degree from U of T, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957.

With U of T innovators front and centre, Collision conference wraps up five-year Toronto run

rahul.kalvapalle — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 14:52:23 +0000

With U of T innovators front and centre, Collision conference wraps up five-year Toronto run

rahul.kalvapalle Fri, 06/21/2024 - 10:52

Cutline

U of T alumna Nuha Siddiqui, co-founder and CEO of Erthos, on stage at the Collision tech conference (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Adina Bresge

Topic

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

U of T Entrepreneurship

Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Innovations & Partnerships Office

Research & Innovation

Startups

Budding entrepreneurs, leading scientists and future business leaders from the �ؿ�ζSM community played a leading role at the 2024 Collision tech conference in downtown Toronto.

Running over three days this week, the conference drew some 40,000 attendees from across the spheres of tech, business and media, including more than 1,600 startups and 700 investors.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies and their impact on business and society were key themes for many of the conference’s keynotes and exhibits – so it was no surprise that U of T’s AI luminaries were front and centre.

They included U of T alumnus Aidan Gomez, co-founder of language processing startup Cohere – which has raised hundreds of millions from investors and generated significant industry buzz.

He urged businesses to commit to adopting AI tools to support their workers.

“Making sure that you’re delivering the tools that your employees need to be competitive and effective is crucial,” Gomez said during his talk on Tuesday.

He added that augmentation of workforces with AI co-pilots and assistants is inevitable – including in industries that might not stand out as obvious adopters of the technology. He shared the example of a natural resources insurance firm that built an AI co-pilot – powered by Cohere – to help their actuaries speed up their research, craft more accurate bids and win more contracts.

“I never would have thought a natural resources insurance company would be adopting LLMs [large language models], but they are, and it’s having an impact. It’s actually helping them win more business,” Gomez said. “So I think the technology is completely horizontal.”

Gomez also cited the medical sector – particularly, drug discovery – as another area that’s poised to benefit massively from AI advances.

Aidan Gomez, a U of T alumnus, talked about how AI will be used to augment the workforce (photo by Polina Teif)

University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton, the influential computer scientist often dubbed the “godfather of AI,” also identified medical care and productivity as two key areas that will see significant improvements thanks to AI. However, much of his discussion, titled "Can We Control AI?", focused on his previously-cited concerns about how AI development could ultimately wrest control from humans given the current race to develop the technology and the absence of sufficient safeguards.

“Even if I’m totally benevolent and I just want to achieve what you asked me to achieve, I’ll realize that if I get more control, it will be easier to do that,” Hinton said of AI agents.

“And actually, if these things are much smarter than us, they’ll realize: Just take the control away from people and it will be much more efficient … and that seems to be like a very slippery path.”

Geoffrey Hinton warned of the existential dangers posed by unchecked AI development (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Gomez, for his part, said he doesn’t believe AI poses a serious threat.

“The notion that the technology is going to start self-improving, that it’s going to start manipulating people, that it’s going to take over, seize power and displace humans: that’s a sci-fi narrative,” he said. “I am empathetic to it – we’ve been writing stories about that exact scenario for decades, since before computers, and so it’s very deeply embedded in our cultural brainstems ... I just don’t think it’s true.”

Earlier at the conference, Raquel Urtasun, founder of self-driving trucking startup Waabi, spoke about generative AI and how Waabi is applying the technology to autonomous trucks. Her keynote took place following the company’s announcement that it raised US$200 million in Series B funding to support the deployment of driverless trucks in 2025.

“Everything will be controlled by generative AI systems inside the vehicle and nothing else. This is a breakthrough for the industry, where such a thing has never happened before,” said Urtasun, a professor in the department of computer science in U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science.

Raquel Urtasun spoke about her self-driving truck startup Waabi (photo by Polina Teif)

The conference also featured demos from other promising U of T startups including Erthos, which has invented sustainable alternatives to plastics and is now using machine learning to accelerate biomaterials discovery.

“Our platform allows us to design effective biomaterials five times faster and with 92 per cent less cost compared to our industry,” said co-founder and CEO Nuha Siddiqui.

Collision’s final year in Toronto was expected to draw some 40,000 attendees (photo by Johnny Guatto)

During the conference, U of T’s booth near the main stage featured exhibits from campus-linked accelerators, institutional strategic initiatives, academic divisions and the Innovations and Partnerships Office. U of T’s Black Founders Network was also at Collision as one of the organizers of the Black Innovation Zone.

Collision 2024 marked the fifth and final edition of the annual conference in Toronto.

Waabi, founded by U of T's Raquel Urtasun, raises US$200 million to launch self-driving trucks

lanthierj — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 20:26:16 +0000

Waabi, founded by U of T's Raquel Urtasun, raises US$200 million to launch self-driving trucks

lanthierj Wed, 06/19/2024 - 16:26

Cutline

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Department of Computer Science

Entrepreneurship

Waabi, a self-driving trucking startup founded by �ؿ�ζSM artificial intelligence (AI) expert Raquel Urtasun, has raised US$200 million in series B funding to support the deployment of fully autonomous, AI-powered trucks in 2025.

The funding round was led by previous investors Uber Technologies Inc.– where Urtasun previously worked as chief scientist of the self-driving division – and Khosla Ventures and includes an array of other high-profile strategic investors including NVIDIA Corp., Volvo Group and Porsche Automobil Holding.

The latest funding brings total investment in Waabi to more than C$380 million and will be used to expand the Toronto-headquartered company’s team in both Canada and the U.S., as well as to launch driverless commercial deliveries in Texas by next year.

(photo Nick Iwanyshyn)

Urtasun, a professor in the department of computer science at U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science and co-founder of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, said Waabi’s end-to-end AI system is advancing self-driving technologies to frontiers beyond the reach of other industry players thanks to its unique ability to carry out complex reasoning.

“What we have at Waabi is a technology that brings generative AI to the physical world for the first time, where the idea is that you have a single AI system that is able to reason like a human does, and is able to generalize to situations everything that might happen on the road – including things that it has never seen before,” she said.

“It does so in a way that is interpretable, so you can validate and verify the system, and provably safe, which is very important as you deploy these massive robots in the real world.”

Paired with Waabi’s advanced simulator, the AI system reduces the need for time-consuming road testing, Urtasun explained.

The announcement came hours before Urtasun took to the main stage at the Collision tech conference in Toronto to deliver a talk on generative AI. Her remarks touched on the technological underpinnings of generative AI and future applications, and outlined how Waabi is bringing generative AI to the physical world – starting with trucking.

Raquel Urtasun at the 2024 edition of Collision (photo by Polina Teif)

Urtasun is one of several experts from U of T’s technology, innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem who are speaking at Collision. Others include University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton, a world-renowned AI luminary and investor in Waabi.

“Self-driving technology is a prime example of how AI can dramatically improve our lives,” Hinton said in a news release. “Raquel and Waabi are at the forefront of innovation, developing a revolutionary approach that radically changes the way autonomous systems work and leads to safer and more efficient solutions.”

Earlier in the week, Urtasun brought one of Waabi’s trucks to the St. George campus and showcased some of its capabilities to Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tony Gaffney, president and CEO of the Vector Institute, and Michael Brudno, professor in the department of computer science and chief data scientist at the University Health Network.

From left: Melanie Woodin, Raquel Urtasun, Tony Gaffney and Michael Brudno (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Urtasun underscored the importance of the company being headquartered in Toronto. “We’re an AI company and Toronto has always been at the forefront of AI,” Urtasun said. “There’s tremendous talent here, a busy ecosystem, and for me it’s important to be in Canada, where I’m very aligned with the values of the country as well.”

Reflecting on her journey at U of T, where she started as an assistant professor in 2014, Urtasun said she initially assumed she would “just be an academic doing research for the rest of my life” – but soon realized that involvement in industry would be critical to advancing AI technologies for use in the real world.

“Three years ago, I saw a tremendous opportunity to start a new company and what you see today is the fruit of that, where we’re really close to deployment on public roads without a human [driver],” said Urtasun.

“It’s amazing – not just for Waabi, not just for Canada, but for the industry at large.”

U of T’s AI thought leaders take centre stage at Collision 2024

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 14:14:37 +0000

U of T’s AI thought leaders take centre stage at Collision 2024

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 06/14/2024 - 10:14

Cutline

Left to right: Geoffrey Hinton, Aidan Gomez and Raquel Urtasun – all U of T community members who are leaders in the AI field – are among the most anticipated speakers this year's Collision tech conference (photos by Johnny Guatto, Piaras Ó Mídheach/Collision via Sportsfile and Polina Teif)

Mariam Matti

Topic

U of T Entrepreneurship

Creative Destruction Lab

Entrepreneurship

Research & Innovation

Startups

Subheadline

“U of T is Canada's leading engine for research-based tech and AI startups and talent - and you see that reflected in both the lineup for Collision speakers, and the entrepreneurs who attend”

Some of the most anticipated speakers at this year’s Collision tech conference are artificial intelligence luminaries from the �ؿ�ζSM – and they will be sharing their insights on how the revolutionary technology is poised to transform industry and society.

Known as the "godfather of AI," Geoffrey Hinton, a cognitive psychologist and U of T University Professor Emeritus of computer science, will host a session on June 19 titled “Can We Control AI?” that explores the potential benefits and risks inherent in AI advancement.

Aidan Gomez, one of Hinton’s former interns at Google Brain, is speaking on June 18 about the real-world impact of AI. He’s CEO and co-founder at Cohere, which he and two U of T alumni founded, and which has been dubbed one of the “buzziest AI startups around right now.”

And Raquel Urtasun, a U of T professor of computer science and the founder and CEO of self-driving truck company Waabi, which launched with one of the largest rounds of seed funding in Canadian history, will share her insights on the trajectory of AI-driven transportation solutions during a session on June 19.

Jon French (photo by Brian de Rivera Simon)

“U of T is Canada's leading engine for research-based tech and AI startups and talent - and you see that reflected in both the lineup for Collision speakers, and the entrepreneurs who attend,” says Jon French, director of U of T Entrepreneurship.

He adds that the conference also gives the university an opportunity to promote “our innovative ecosystem and connect with corporate partners from around the world and investors looking to grow their pipelines, governments and academic institutions at home and aboard.”

Anticipated to draw more than 40,000 attendees, Collision runs from June 17 to 20 at the Enercare Centre in Toronto and will feature startup founders, business leaders, investors, scientists, journalists and celebrities, including tennis star Maria Sharapova.

Before the conference officially kicks off, U of T Entrepreneurship will host two tours of the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus in partnership with the City of Toronto and the Government of Ontario. It will also have a booth at Collision to showcase U of T’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, featuring self-driving lab and robot demos from the Acceleration Consortium and CRAFT Microfluidics – both U of T institutional strategic initiatives – and a “Startup Spotlight.”

U of T’s Black Founders Network is part of a group of community organizers leading the Black Innovation Zone, which will have its own booth with programming for Black innovators.

French says the conference provides U of T startups and entrepreneurs a chance to pitch their ideas and connect with global mentors, advisers, investors, partners and peers.

“For many founders, it is an eye-opening conference that gets them thinking bigger about the markets they serve and often leads to participating in programs and opportunities in geographies around the world,” he says.

Nuha Siddiqui (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Nuha Siddiqui is among the U of T-connected entrepreneurs participating in Collision this year. She is the co-founder and CEO of Erthos, which has developed a plant-based resin that can be used as a substitute for traditional plastics when manufacturing everyday products. She launched the company with Kritika Tyagi while they were studying at the university and received support from U of T’s entrepreneurship community, including the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management.

Siddiqui said she’s “incredibly thankful” for U of T’s continued support to Erthos’s growth.

“My co-founder and I started Erthos years ago while we were still students, and since graduating, U of T has continued to broaden our network, contribute to meaningful media coverage and remain active champions of our success,” she says.

“It's an absolute honour to represent the entrepreneurship community on the main stage at Collision this year and to have the opportunity to amplify our mission towards building a more material-conscious future."

Here are just a few other U of T faculty, alumni and other community members who will be shaping the dialogue around innovation, tech and entrepreneurship at this year’s conference:

Christian Weedbrook, founder and CEO at Xanadu and a former U of T post-doctoral researcher, will discuss the future of data centres and how quantum computing can be leveraged to avoid future economic and climate issues.
Mike Murchison, U of T alum and founding CEO of Ada, which received support from the Creative Destruction Lab, will discuss the evolution of AI customer service agents and their implications for brands and consumers.
Curtis VanWalleghem, co-founder and CEO at Hydrostor and a U of T alumnus, will speak about Hydrostor’s innovative technology that utilizes underground spaces for a sustainable long-term energy storage.
David Wong, chief product officer at Thomson Reuters and U of T alumnus, will explore the transformative power of AI and offer insights on how organizations can unlock its full potential for business operations.
Mara Reiff, U of T alumna, chief customer officer and interim co-CEO at Freshbooks, and Dan Richards, assistant professor, teaching stream, at the Rotman School of Management, will discuss how to empower small business owners to make smart decisions.

How will AI change our world? U of T podcast explores technology’s impact on society

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 15:17:45 +0000

How will AI change our world? U of T podcast explores technology’s impact on society

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/04/2024 - 11:17

Mariam Matti

Topic

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Unity Health

What Now? AI

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

CIFAR

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty of Information

Faculty of Law

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Startups

U of T Mississauga

Vector Institute

Subheadline

In What Now? AI, hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan explore – and demystify – artificial intelligence and its impact on society with the help of leading experts

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence are posing profound questions about the future – and about us.

Can we ensure safety and alignment within AI systems? How might AI forever transform fields like health care? What ripple effects could AI have on jobs and livelihoods, including in creative industries?

�ؿ�ζSM researchers Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan explore – and demystify – these and other topics by tapping into the knowledge of leading AI experts in What Now? AI, a new U of T podcast that launches this week.

It can be found on Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio and Amazon.

An associate professor at U of T Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and the Faculty of Information, Coleman says she hopes the episodes help audiences make sense of new AI tools and systems by cutting through “all the noisiness and controversy that has taken over the headlines.”

“It can be complex and technical, but it’s also social,” says Coleman, a research lead on AI policy and praxis at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology & Society.

“What we do with AI makes a difference and more people need to be able to share that knowledge.”

Coleman’s own research centres around technology and society with a focus on data and cities, AI and policy, and generative arts. Inspired by Octavia Butler’s 1980 Xenogenesis trilogy, Coleman authored Reality Was Whatever Happened: Octavia Butler AI and Other Possible Worlds using art and generative AI.

Krishnan, meanwhile, is an assistant professor in U of T’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. A Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute and Canada Research Chair in computational medicine, Krishnan and his team focus on teaching neural networks about causality, building deep learning models that analyze cause and effect from data.

“I’m excited to co-host this podcast to explore and demystify for a broader audience AI through the lens of an accomplished and diverse set of experts,” says Krishnan, who is also a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a faculty member at the Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM).

What Now? AI picks up where the conversation started last year by Geoffrey Hinton, the cognitive psychologist and University Professor emeritus of computer science who is known as the “Godfather of AI.” After a lifetime spent developing a type of AI known as deep learning, Hinton stepped back from his role at Google to warn about the existential threats of unchecked AI development.

Since then, there have been ongoing advancements in AI research, technological applications and policy development.

Coleman and Krishnan will tackle these and other topics with guests:

Gillian Hadfield, professor of law and strategic management at the Faculty of Law and the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society.
Roger Grosse, associate professor of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and founding member of the Vector Institute.
Christine Allen, professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and co-founder and CEO of Intrepid Labs Inc.
Andrew Pinto, a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, and associate professor in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Nick Frosst, co-founder of Cohere, singer in Good Kid band and a U of T computer science and cognitive science alumnus.

“The What Now? AI podcast highlights the incredible researchers at the �ؿ�ζSM who are exploring the profound implications of this transformative technology,” says Leah Cowen, U of T’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “These discussions tackle critical questions surrounding AI safety and alignment and its myriad implications across various domains.

“The university is committed to fostering informed discussions that will shape our collective understanding of AI’s role in our society and in our future.”

Coleman says she hopes listeners come away from the podcast feeling more grounded.

Krishnan, for his part, wants the audience to understand “that there is no one group that has ownership” over the technology” and that “the free exchange of ideas and open-source tools encourage people from all disciplines to come see how accessible AI can be, what AI can do for them and how they can advance the discourse in the field.”

The year in pictures: U of T News looks back at 2023

mattimar — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 14:58:42 +0000

The year in pictures: U of T News looks back at 2023

mattimar Tue, 12/19/2023 - 09:58

Cutline

Dancer Deanne Hupfield at the inaugural All-Nations Powwow co-hosted by U of T Mississauga’s Indigenous Centre and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Mariam Matti

Topic

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Acceleration Consortium

Geoexchange

Joe's Basketball Diaries

UTogether

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Entrepreneurship

University Health Network

Undergraduate Students

The �ؿ�ζSM marked many memorable milestones across the three campuses in 2023.

From co-hosting an inaugural All-Nations Powwow to guiding the future of artificial intelligence and advocating for social justice around the world, members of the U of T community and their partners made an impact well beyond the classroom in 2023.

And photographers at U of T News and elsewhere at the university were often on hand to capture the action.

Here are just a few of the special moments that shaped U of T this year:

(photo by David Lee)

The Landmark Project has transformed the historic core of U of T’s St. George campus around King’s College Circle into a greener, more accessible and pedestrian-friendly space.

Front Campus is also now home to Canada’s largest urban geoexchange system, which will generate renewable energy and store surplus heat in the summer for use in the cold winter months. The system will save the university an estimated 15,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually – a key part of U of T’s climate-positive plans and among the reasons it was recently named the most sustainable university in the world.

(photo by Lisa Lightbourn)

Following Geoffrey Hinton’s departure from Google, U of T News travelled to his home in London, England, for an in-depth conversation with the U of T University Professor Emeritus of computer science about the dangers posed by unchecked advances in AI, the role he and others played in creating the technology and the importance of responsible development.

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Abby-Gayle Isadora Allen celebrated completing the Support, Engage, Experience �ؿ�ζSM Mississauga program this year by dancing beside Juno Award-winning singer Liberty Silver during the graduation ceremony.

The innovative program aims to make university education more accessible to Black youth who are underrepresented at Canada’s post-secondary schools. Students in Grade 11 and 12 earn a university half-credit and two Ontario Secondary School Diploma credits, have a co-op experience and are mentored by a senior U of T undergraduate student while simultaneously completing their high school semester.

Similar programs operate at U of T Scarborough and the St. George campus, which introduced SEE U of T, the inaugural version of this access program, four years ago in collaboration with the Toronto District School Board.

(photo by Luis Mora)

Jaivet Ealom, a U of T student, author, a member of the persecuted Rohingya minority and refugee advocate, shared his harrowing escape to Canada in U of T News and U of T Magazine.

Ealom fled his home country of Myanmar in 2013. Before arriving at U of T, he had travelled through six countries and three continents seeking asylum – surviving a near-drowning and multiple detentions along the way.

(photo by Johnny Guatto)

U of T hosted the 14^th annual Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference in May, which brought together global scholars, artists, Elders and independent professionals working in the field of Indigenous Studies. The event covered themes from food sovereignty to contemporary Indigenous cinema and language revitalization.

(photo by Polina Teif)

Brokoslaw Laschowski, a research scientist at the KITE Research Institute, University Health Network, and assistant professor in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and his team are developing AI-powered wearable technology for medical applications.

Known as the “bionic professor,” Laschowski is passionate about developing assistive technology such as bionic prosthetic legs and exoskeletons to help individuals with physical disabilities.

In his spare time, he’s helping students from Ukraine flee the Russian invasion and war to come to U of T to continue their studies.

(photo by Chai Chen)

Charlotte Wargniez graduated from U of T Scarborough at the age of 17 with a major in environmental geoscience and a minor in applied climatology.

She wrapped up her degree with many impressive accolades – including the Rose Sheinin Award, given to the highest-performing woman student in science across U of T’s three campuses and an excellence and leadership award from U of T Scarborough's department of physical and environmental sciences.

(photo by Johnny Guatto)

The Acceleration Consortium at U of T, an institutional strategic initiative, was awarded a $200-million grant from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund to revolutionize the speed and impact of materials discovery – all with a focus on building a sustainable future.

The funding – the largest federal research grant ever awarded to a Canadian university – supports the consortium’s work on “self-driving labs” that combine AI, robotics and advanced computing to discover new materials and molecules at a fraction of the usual time and cost.

With a strong plan of equity, diversity and inclusion guiding project implementation and research design, the initiative will commercialize ethically designed technologies and materials to benefit society and train today’s scientists with the skills they need to advance the emerging field of accelerated materials discovery. It will also allow the consortium to examine critical issues regarding the application of the technology, including from environmental and Indigenous perspectives.

(photo by Polina Teif)

Niloofar Ganji, a PhD student in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, is changing the world in more ways than one.

Ganji not only conducts groundbreaking research on a critical condition affecting premature infants – she is deeply committed to activism for social change in her home country of Iran.

As an executive member of U of T Students for a Free Iran (UTSFI), she has organized many events at the university in support of the anti-regime movement in Iran. She hopes to use her knowledge and expertise in pediatrics and healthcare to work for the Iranian people one day.

(photo supplied)

When a catastrophic series of earthquakes hit Türkiye and Syria earlier this year, students from the Turkish Students Association (pictured) at U of T Scarborough rallied together to collect funds and in-kind donations on campus.

They were among the many U of T community members across the three campuses who pitched in to help raise awareness and funds in the wake of the disaster.

(photo by Nithya Thayaal)

U of T celebrated the graduation of more than 21,000 students from the university’s three campuses in 2023 – including the U of T Scarborough student pictured above.

Friends and family looked on as many of those graduates crossed the stage inside Convocation Hall during convocation ceremonies held in spring and fall.

(photo by Johnny Guatto)

Peter Ma, an undergraduate math and physics student in the Faculty of Arts & Science, is dedicated to searching for life beyond our planet by drawing on his passion for science – and artificial intelligence in particular.

He became the youngest member of a team of international researchers at the University of California, Berkeley who are searching the stars for extraterrestrial intelligence and was lead author on a paper published earlier this year in the journal Nature Astronomy.

From left to right: William Lou, Joseph Wong, Sam Ibrahim and Aleer Aleer-Leek (photo by Polina Teif)

In the first episode of the second season of the award-winning series Joe’s Basketball Diaries, host Joseph Wong sits down with Will Lou, writer and co-host of the Raptors Show podcast, Sam Ibrahim, a business leader, philanthropist and major supporter of U of T Scarborough, and Aleer Aleer-Leek, a U of T student and Varsity Blues basketball player, to talk about community and sports.

In future episodes, Wong, U of T’s vice-president, international, and a professor in the department of political science and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy in the Faculty of Arts & Science, and guests take the conversation beyond the court as they discuss topics ranging from sustainability to inclusion.

(photo by Johnny Guatto)

Studying at U of T gave Alicia Corbiere an opportunity to re-engage with her culture when she began learning from Indigenous professors and studying Anishinaabemowin. She also connected with her community by joining First Nations House and the Indigenous Students’ Association.

After graduating with a degree in criminology and Indigenous studies from the Faculty of Arts & Science in the spring, Corbiere went on to study Indigenous law at U of T’s Faculty of Law.

(photo by Polina Teif)

The leafy, green lettuce that many members of the U of T community are eating in their salads, sandwiches and hamburgers is not just locally grown – but grown on the St. George campus by a student-led startup in partnership with U of T Food Services.

Lyrata co-founders Leo Hua (pictured), Carol Lin and Adnan Sharif say they are bringing innovations to the field of sustainability – including 3D-printed soil.

Geoffrey Hinton tops Toronto Life's list of most influential people

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 19:42:00 +0000

Geoffrey Hinton tops Toronto Life's list of most influential people

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 11/21/2023 - 14:42

Cutline

(photo by Polina Teif)

Topic

Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Law

Rotman School of Management

St. Michael's Hospital

Toronto Life

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

Subheadline

Hinton among several U of T community members highlighted by the magazine

Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor emeritus of computer science at the �ؿ�ζSM and the “godfather of AI”, has been ranked the most influential of 2023 by Toronto Life magazine.

After Hinton announced he was leaving his job at Google to warn the world about the existential threat of AI earlier this year, the magazine reports he received more than 1,000 interview requests about the future of the tech he helped create.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invited Hinton to dinner to discuss what Canada should do about AI and he fielded calls from the White House and 10 Downing Street.

“When he speaks, everyone pays attention,” writes Toronto Life, which also published an in-depth profile of Hinton.

Hinton was one of more than 15 U of T alumni, faculty and community members that made the magazine’s annual list of movers and shakers.

Others include: Tiff Macklem, governor of the Bank of Canada and former dean of the Rotman School of Management; Ilya Sutskever, an alumnus and co-founder of OpenAI; Gregg Lintern, retiring Toronto chief planner and U of T alumnus; Anita Anand, Treasury Board president and a professor in the Faculty of Law (on leave); James Maskalyk, an emergency doctor at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health, and a faculty member in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine; Raquel Urtasun, CEO of self-driving truck startup Waabi and a professor of computer science; Leigh Chapman, Canada’s chief nursing officer and U of T alumna; Sam Ibrahim, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who is a major supporter of U of T Scarborough; and Carlo Fidani, a businessman, philanthropist and U of T honorary degree-holder who has supported the Mississauga Academy of Medicine at U of T Mississauga and whose Orlando Corporation has made a major investment in the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH).

Members of the U of T community were also featured in the magazine’s list of rising stars, published in the same issue.

Read the full list in Toronto Life

Geoffrey Hinton fields questions from scholars, students during academic talk on responsible AI

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 14:48:22 +0000

Geoffrey Hinton fields questions from scholars, students during academic talk on responsible AI

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 11/02/2023 - 10:48

Cutline

Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor Emeritus of computer science who has been dubbed the “Godfather of AI,” delivers an academic talk about artificial intelligence in U of T’s Convocation Hall (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Chris Sorensen

Topic

Institute of Biomedical Engineering

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Deep Learning

Subheadline

'Godfather of AI' asks: Will Digital Intelligence Replace Biological Intelligence?

Does artificial intelligence actually understand? Would knowing more about its inner workings help to keep it in check? Could AI come up with the law of gravity if it hadn’t yet been devised?

These were among the questions that professors and students put to Geoffrey Hinton during a recent event at the �ؿ�ζSM’s 1,730-seat Convocation Hall.

The U of T University Professor emeritus of computer science and “godfather of AI” was there to deliver an academic talk about – and take queries on – the key differences between biological and digital intelligences, whether large language models such as ChatGPT understand what they are doing and the existential risks posed by unfettered development of the technology he helped create.

“My guess is that they will take over – they'll be much, much more intelligent than people ever were,” said Hinton, who added that humanity was likely “just a passing stage” in intelligence’s evolution.

“That's my best guess and I hope I'm wrong.”

The Oct. 27. event was co-hosted by U of T’s Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and the department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science in collaboration with the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the Cosmic Future Initiative.

Hinton’s talk came amid a flurry of AI-related developments. Three days earlier, Hinton, fellow Turing Award-winner Yoshua Bengio and 22 other AI experts, including U of T professors Gillian Hadfield, Tegan Maharaj and Sheila McIlraith, released a paper calling for governments and Big Tech firms to take action on the issue, including by devoting one-third of their AI research and development budgets to AI safety. And on Oct. 30, U.S. President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order on Safe, Secure and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence.

Hinton took questions from audience members, many of them professors and students (photo by Johnny Guatto)

“AI is poised to transform how we live and work,” said Professor Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, after she summarized the seminal work Hinton did on deep learning neural networks with the help of his graduate students.

“At this pivotal moment when we consider the opportunities and risks of AI, who better to guide us in this conversation than Dr. Hinton himself?”

Hinton, who is also a cognitive scientist, explained why he began sounding the alarm about AI earlier this year after spending decades developing the technology to better understand how the human mind works. In short: It is the rapid advances in large language models such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s PaLM coupled with the scaling advantages that digital intelligences enjoy due to their ability to be copied and share information.

And he warned that neural networks’ learning capacity is likely to grow even further as more sources of information, including video, are incorporated into their training. “They could also learn much faster if they manipulated the physical world,” he said.

He finished his presentation by suggesting AI chatbots may even be capable of subjective experience – a concept that is tied up with ideas about consciousness and sentience. “The reason I believe that is because I think people are wrong in their analysis of what subjective experience is,” he said.

Left to right: Sheila McIlraith, Geoffrey Hinton, Gillian Hadfield and Melanie Woodin (photo by Johnny Guatto)

The talk was followed by a lengthy Q-and-A session co-ordinated by McIlraith, a professor in the department of computer science and a faculty member at the Vector Institute, where Hinton is chief scientific adviser. McIlraith said she hoped the event would inspire attendees to “help chart a course toward a future where digital and biological intelligence both enrich the human experience.”

Scholars – both professors and students – in fields ranging from philosophy to cognition probed Hinton’s thinking and, in some cases, his conclusions.

Shalev Lifshitz, a fourth-year undergraduate student in computer science who is doing AI research in McIlraith’s group at U of T and the Vector Institute, got into a back-and-forth discussion with Hinton about whether tools like ChatGPT ever truly understand what they are doing (Hinton says yes).

“I’m on the fence – I was on the fence before – but I thought he made very interesting points,” Lifshitz said immediately following the event. “I think it depends on what the definition of ‘understanding’ is. I’m not clear on that yet.”

Others, like Jennifer Nagel, a professor in the department of philosophy at U of T Mississauga, wondered if future AI might find us interesting or special “in a way that would make the best and brightest artificial intelligences take our side.”

Scholars in fields ranging from philosophy to cognition probed Hinton’s thinking during the Q-and-A (photo by Johnny Guatto)

“I mean, for me to be an interesting conversational partner with you right now, I don't even have to be smarter than you … I just have to have some knowledge that you don't have – or even just some way of looking at a problem that you find interesting,” she said.

Hinton was also asked to give advice to students studying in the field.

“Work on AI safety,” he said, noting that top researchers such as OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, a U of T alumnus, and Roger Grosse and David Duvenaud – both associate professors of computer science at the university and Vector Institute faculty members – are all working on the subject.

For many, the event was simply a rare chance to hear directly from a world-renowned researcher whose work has already forever changed our lives.

Guijin Li, a PhD student in biomedical engineering, said she is really interested in Hinton’s thoughts on AI development and jumped at the chance to hear him in person.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

—with files from Mariam Matti

Geoffrey Hinton to give scholarly talk on whether AI will eclipse human intelligence

lanthierj — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 14:52:19 +0000

Geoffrey Hinton to give scholarly talk on whether AI will eclipse human intelligence

lanthierj Tue, 10/24/2023 - 10:52

Cutline

Geoffrey Hinton (photo by Polina Teif)

Adina Bresge

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Department of Computer Science