Is Canada ALL IN on A.I.?

Amber Mac (0:03)

Welcome to this week's episode of The AmberMac Show. We recently took the show on the road. Jeff and I were at All In in Montreal, catching up with past guests and discussing the role of humans in the age of artificial intelligence.

Jeff MacArthur (0:17)

And as you'll hear soon, All In is the biggest AI conference in Canada at a time when we need to build and grow faster. It was great to be in Montreal for a few days to enjoy the event, plus a big thank you to Cohere for inviting us to the Salon Conversation with their co-founder and CEO Aiden Gomez, with special guest, Chess Grandmaster, Magnus Carlsen. I really enjoyed that. More on that soon. For now, let's get into the headlines from All In.

Headlines.

Amber Mac (0:45)

Jeff and I recently had an opportunity to attend the fourth edition of the All In AI Conference in Montreal. So we wanted to focus on that. There were so many interesting talks, incredible people at the event, and a lot going on. So before we get too far, Jeff, for our listeners who maybe aren't familiar with All In in Montreal, what are some of the facts about that event?

Jeff MacArthur (1:09)

For sure. So All In is a two-day conference in Montreal that's billed as Canada's largest AI and tech event, with 10,000 attendees from over 50 countries and more than 250 speakers covering five key content track areas. So AI in society, applied AI in enterprise transformation, AI at the frontier, AI data and infrastructure, and physical AI in robots. Founded in 2023, this year's All In featured Germany as its country of honor, as well as a number of significant announcements including a $300 million joint funding announcement between Canada and Germany for Law Zero, a Montreal-based nonprofit founded by AI pioneer and All In speaker, Yoshua Bengio, one of the most cited computer scientists in the world and founder of MILA, the Quebec AI Institute.

Amber Mac (1:59)

That funding supports Law Zero's scientist AI approach, which is focused on making AI more transparent, trustworthy and safe, which were focus areas across a variety of the talks at All In this year, which is really no surprise. Just a quick tidbit, Jeff, because I did a little media interview on Law Zero, and as I was researching what they're doing with scientist AI, in just layman's terms, it really is about creating an AI system that isn't a people pleaser. You know, it's sort of a research arm or part of your organization versus something that's just going to tell you that you're incredible and everything you write is amazing. So I just wanted to say that in simple terms. But again, you know, more broadly, it is focused on transparency, trust and safety, which were big themes at this year's event.

Jeff MacArthur (2:50)

Yeah, and that's no surprise given the diminishing trust many people are feeling towards AI.

Indeed, another big announcement was the signing of the finalized agreement for Canada's Cohere, our very own LLM provider, to acquire the German AI startup, AlephAlpha, a company that develops large language models that emphasize the transparency of sources used to generate its results. This merger, which will have headquarters in both Toronto, where Cohere currently is headquartered, and Berlin, not only helps better address the trust issue that's so omnipresent when discussing AI, but it also helps Cohere to better challenge US-China AI dominance.

Amber Mac (3:29)

We also had a chance to see quite a few former guests of The AmberMac Show. We didn't really plan it this way, but on stage, Canada's AI minister, Evan Solomon was doing a great session, and he's been a guest on the show. Also, the founding director of the Center for Media, Technology and Democracy, Taylor Owen. We got to spend some time with him.

We had a great catch up with musician and the founder of Reimagine AI, David Usher, as well as a fun lunch with Sean Kennedy, VP of Bell Labs, and so many others. It was just a fun coincidence that most of those people were guests on this show and also played some sort of role at All In as well.

Jeff MacArthur (4:13)

Yeah, and I think I accidentally walked through Minister Solomon's video at the end of the cocktail thing. He was over in some area with the camera team that I didn't quite notice that you may be able to see me in that anyway.

We also had the opportunity, as we mentioned in the intro, and I have to point out, as I was fanboying on this a bit, meeting the greatest chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, who recently joined Cohere as a brand ambassador. So that was at a nearby event that Amber moderated with Aidan Gomez, the CEO and co-founder of Cohere. And we're going to have that conversation on an upcoming show and I can't wait to see that again.