Is our future with generative AI terrifying, exciting, or fascinating?

In this episode, we talk about the adoption of artificial intelligence in the workplace, the opportunities to implement AI in healthcare delivery, and privacy in a world enabled by generative AI.

Avi Goldfarb is the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare and a professor of marketing at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Avi is the Chief Data Scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab, a faculty affiliate at the Vector Institute and the Schwartz-Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Avi’s research focuses on the opportunities and challenges of the digital economy.

Along with Ajay Agrawal and Joshua Gans, Avi is the author of the bestselling books Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence and Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence.

In this episode, we talk about the adoption of artificial intelligence in the workplace, the opportunities to implement AI in healthcare delivery, and privacy in a world enabled by generative AI.

This is our annual Year in Review with Professor Janice Stein where she helps us understand key global events and news stories of 2023 – from global unrest to climate change, from technological advances in artificial intelligence to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Janice is a legendary Canadian political scientist and international relations expert. She is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science and the Founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Janice is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada; among her many distinctions.

We wish our Connected Intelligence community a safe and happy holiday season and new year!

How can we reimagine everyday conversation for more connective personal and professional dialogue?

Caitlin (Caity) Begg is the founder of Authentic Social and sociological researcher researching technology’s effect on conversation. She founded Authentic Social in 2016 after writing her undergraduate Harvard sociology honors thesis on how digital communication affects relationships and social interaction.

Caity presents her sociological research around the United States and Europe at a variety of academic and industry conferences. In parallel, she is conducting ongoing independent sociological research, with a focus on technology's effect on conversation and sociotechnical systems. Within these contexts, further areas of focus include: the effect of asynchronous communication and hypercommunication on daily interactions, artificial intelligence and human interaction, and more.

We chat with Caity about Authentic Social, the hyperactive digital world we live in, responsible AI, and how we can incorporate more intention in our daily conversations.

It’s been one year since the launch of chatGPT - how has regulation and policy evolved since then? And where does it need to go?

Recently appointed a Schmidt Futures AI2050 Senior Fellow, Professor Gillian Hadfield is a scholar of law and economics with a focus on the intersection of legal system design and the governance of AI.

She is currently spending her time in an area of urgent importance for humanity: innovative design for legal and regulatory systems for AI and other complex global technologies; computational models of human normative systems; and working with machine learning researchers to build machine learning systems that understand and respond to human norms.

She is the director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society, professor of law and of strategic management at the University of Toronto. Professor Hadfield was a Senior Policy Advisor for OpenAI, and is an advisor to courts, governments and several organizations and technology companies engaged in innovating new ways to make law and policy smarter, more accessible, and more responsive to technology and artificial intelligence.

We chat with Gillian about how she frames the two different challenges at hand with AI: conventional risks and frontier risks, how we build regulatory infrastructure that interfaces well with these new technologies, as well as the importance of interdisciplinary teamwork to solve these complex problems.

How does the CEO of a skunkworks operation built in a garage in Alberta – become a globally recognized leader in agriculture, technology and innovation?

Alison Sunstrum is the CEO of Conserve X, a Canadian company developing and investing in emerging technology in agriculture, and a General Partner of The51 Food and AgTech Fund, investing in outliers transforming the business of food and agriculture.

Alison is a Venture Partner and LP at Builders VC, a San Francisco/Calgary venture capital fund. Alison is a Founding Partner and Fellow in the Ag Stream of CDL-Rockies, and the Manufacturing stream at CDL-Seattle.

Alison’s company GrowSafe won the Intel award for Innovation, Canada’s Ingenious award, and the AsTech-Dow Sciences award for agricultural science innovation. In 2021, Alison was recognized as one of Canada’s most influential leaders in agriculture.

We speak to Alison about her early career journey and her passion for science, technology, and innovation. Alison shares with us her philosophy on continuous learning and mentorship, the importance of a first customer, and how technology founders should think about growth. A very special feature of this episode – Alison teaches us about the Internet of Livestock Things!

What did it take to become the youngest woman ever to hold the role of Chief Economist at a major Canadian financial institution?

Patti Croft is regarded as one of the country's most influential business leaders and financial commentators. She has 30 years of experience on Bay Street, working at Burns Fry and Wood Gundy.

In 1996, Patti was named Chief Economist of TD Canada Trust. Patti has worked with Sceptre Investment Counsel, Phillips Hager & North Investment Management and was named Chief Economist of RBC Global Asset Management in late 2008.

Patti has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, commenting on Canadian financial market developments and the national economic outlook. Patti is a graduate in economics from the University of Toronto and is the proud mother of three young adults. She is also a Senior Associate member of the Ticker Club.

Patti shares her unfiltered story about how she built her life and career, the trade-offs she made along the way, her best advice to prepare for the worst, and the importance of self-compassion.

Why can’t large language models make us a cup of tea? Suzanne walks us through the answer to this question to illustrate the importance of developing embodied artificial intelligence. We chat about Geordie and Suzanne’s working dynamic, how both robots and AI are essential to the factory of the future, how we might manufacture in outer space, and why it is critical to maintain hope and purpose in life.

Geordie Rose and Suzanne Gildert are co-founders of Sanctuary AI - a company on a mission to create the world’s first human-like intelligence in general-purpose robots.

Prior to Sanctuary, Geordie founded D­-Wave, the world’s first quantum computing company, and was the CEO of Kindred, the world’s first robotics company to use reinforcement learning in a production environment. He was named the 2011 Canadian Innovator of the Year, was listed on Foreign Policy Magazine’s 100 Leading Global Thinkers in 2013, and won the 2014 Canadian Technology Leader award. Geordie holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of British Columbia. He is a two-time Canadian national wrestling champion and McMaster Engineering Physics graduate.

Before Sanctuary, Suzanne founded Kindred. The acquisition of Kindred by Ocado in November 2020 was the third-largest exit for a robotics company in Canadian history. While at DWave, Suzanne invented and implemented MAXCAT, the world’s first game ever played against a quantum computer, worked on the world’s first supervised classifier run on a quantum computer, and was the first person to control the motion of a robot using a quantum computer. Suzanne holds a Ph.D. in experimental physics from the University of Birmingham. Suzanne is a published digital artist and poet, has worked as a graphic designer, and pioneered a technique for creating art using a quantum computer.

>> Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/S3WLySNyDcc?si=vxmqlXscOTEqBpwD

How do you find signals for greatness in a noisy world with thousands of ideas?

James Cham is a Partner at Bloomberg Beta. At the firm, he focuses on investments in data-centric and machine learning-related companies. Previously, he was a Principal at Trinity Ventures where he focused on investments in consumer services specifically ecommerce, social media, and digital media. James was a Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners where he focused on advanced web technologies and investments in consumer internet services, security, and digital media sectors along with a number of seed investments. While with Boston Consulting Group, James developed marketing strategies for entertainment and information technology companies.

James received an A.B. degree in Computer Science from Harvard University, an M.B.A. from MIT's Sloan School where he was a Siebel Scholar and interned at Sun Microsystems.

In this episode, we discuss how to think about organizations as technology, James’s early investments in artificial intelligence, and his views on the best path towards AI regulation or “bugs as a public good”. We talk about the latest developments in large language models and the problem with anthropomorphizing AI.

How does one “get it done”?

Brendan Calder is the former CEO, chair and president of CIBC Mortgages (1995-2000) and former chair of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation and the Toronto International Film Festival.

Brendan created the award-winning MBA course, GettingltDone.

Brendan is chair of Desautels Centre for Integrative Thinking and the founding chair of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management at the Rotman School of Management. He is also a corporate director and continues to make major philanthropic contributions throughout his community. For his efforts spanning more than three decades, he has been awarded numerous honours and awards, including induction into the Canadian Mortgage Hall of Fame in 2004 and over ten excellence in teaching awards.

We talk to Brendan about his transition from banking to teaching – his transition from teaching to retirement; Buddhism, motorcycles, movies, and leadership.

We welcome singer-songwriter legend, Chantal Kreviazuk (sitting at her piano!) to the podcast. Chantal is a one-of-a-kind talent - she has recorded 9 studio albums including her debut album “Under these Rocks and Stones” in 1996 and her latest “Get To You”, released in 2020. Chantal is a prolific songwriter, collaborating with global superstars like: Drake, Pitbull, Christina Aguilera, Carrie Underwood, Kendrick Lamar and Pink. Her work has been recognized through numerous awards, and the Order of Canada.

Outside of music Chantal dedicates her time to War Child, Artists Against Racism, and Jane Goodall Institute of Canada. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba – she now lives in Los Angeles with her husband Raine Maida from Our Lady Peace, and her three sons - Rowan, Lucca and Salvador.

Chantal talks about her creative process, the concept of fame, and how songs evolve over time. Bonus tracks at the end of the podcast chat -- of Chantal singing a handful of her incredible songs live at the piano.