Sûreté de l'IA à Montréal

Can AI systems be conscious? How could we know? And why does it matter?

Joaquim Streicher (Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience; co-founder MONIC)

Presentation on the debate around AI consciousness (current vs future models), how consciousness might be assessed, and why avoiding false negatives/false positives matters ethically; includes introduction to MONIC. Recommended readings: Bayne et al. (2024), Butlin et al. (2023), Chalmers (2023), Colombatto & Fleming (2024), Martin, Streicher, O'Dea (2025).

Veracity in the Age of Persuasive AI

Taylor Lynn Curtis (Mila)

Talk on the tension between AI persuasion and ethical deployment; introduces "Veracity," a tool using AI to detect/mitigate misinformation and support data quality/user protection; closes with governance insights.

Tipping Points & Early Warnings: Complex Systems Theory on Catastrophic Transitions

Discussion of Scheffer et al. (Nature, 2009) on generic early-warning signals near tipping points (e.g., "critical slowing down"), and implications for AI governance.

Pessimists Archive

Emma Kondrup

Activity/discussion using pessimistsarchive.org to compare historical "new technology panic" headlines (cars/radio/TV) with modern AI narratives; explores when "AI exceptionalism" (or "existentialism") is justified.

Defensive Acceleration Hackathon

Hackathon focused on "defensive acceleration" (def/acc): building tech to strengthen defenses against major threats (pandemics, cybercrime, and AI risk). Prize pool: $20,000 USD. Co-organized with Apart Research.

Neuronpedia 101

Discussion + demo introducing Neuronpedia concepts (models, sparse autoencoders, features/lists, feature pages), running small experiments (search, activation tests), and ending with ways to contribute.

Co-design a National Citizens' Assembly on Superintelligence

Short workshop to co-design a National Citizens' Assembly on Superintelligence for Canada; intended outputs: a Concept Note, a Consortium Intent Memo, and an invite list.

Canada's 2025 Budget vs AI risk

Discussion of AI-related parts of Canada's 2025 federal budget and how they map onto AI risk reduction / threat models (power concentration, epistemics, bio, autonomy, misuse, systemic risk, etc.).

If Anyone Reads It, Everyone's Welcome

Small gathering/reading-group discussion of "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies," using author-suggested discussion questions. Co-organized with PauseAI Montréal.

International AI Safety Report – First Key Update

Walkthrough/discussion of the International AI Safety Report "First Key Update: Capabilities and Risk Implications" (dated 2025-10-14), covering recent capability gains, longer-horizon agents, and implications for bio/cyber risks, monitoring/controllability, and labor-market impacts.

Canada's AI Strategy Survey Jam

Hands-on group session to complete the Government of Canada's consultation survey for the next national AI strategy; includes short briefing, 1-hour survey fill, and wrap-up.

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

Launch/discussion event for "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" (Yudkowsky & Soares): primer on claims, then discussion + audience Q&A on technical/policy/institutional risk-reduction moves.

A Definition of AGI

Walkthrough of a proposal operationalizing AGI as matching the cognitive versatility/proficiency of a well-educated adult, grounded in the CHC model; emphasizes concrete tests over a single benchmark.

Introducing PauseAI Montréal

Nik Lacombe

Introduction + discussion of PauseAI and its Montréal group; focuses on mitigating risks by convincing governments to pause development of superhuman AI.

Introducing aisafety.info

Olivier Coutu

Overview of aisafety.info: intro to existential AI risk, large FAQ, "Stampy" chatbot, and an alignment resources dataset; includes Q&A and requests for improvement suggestions/help.

Global Call for AI Red Lines

Discussion of the Global Call for AI Red Lines and what "do-not-cross" limits could look like in practice (prohibitions, treaty precedents, and Canadian roles).

Social Media Safety and the Unplug project

Evan Lombardi

Impacts of social media recommendation algorithms on mental health; survey of online manipulation/dark patterns, scams/deepfakes, extremist/explicit content, and mis/dis/malinformation; closes with an overview of the Unplug Project.

Verifying a toy neural network

Samuel Gélineau

Demo/project talk showing how to verify a neural network satisfies a safety property (beyond tested inputs) by adapting range analysis ideas to network weights.

Towards Guaranteed Safe AI

Orpheus Lummis

Presentation of core ideas from "Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems", followed by Q&A and open discussion.