Carney launches 13-member AI council, with Bengio aboard

Prime Minister Mark Carney named a 13-member advisory council on artificial intelligence on October 2, with Montreal computer scientist Yoshua Bengio and Mila CEO Valérie Pisano among the members, CBC reported.

The Prime Minister's National Council on Artificial Intelligence will inform the government on "how to manage the risks, seize the opportunities and ensure AI is used to improve the lives of all Canadians," and will "advise on the evolution of the government's AI for All strategy," according to a readout from the PM's office. Its remit spans AI safety, protecting democracy, sovereign infrastructure and national champions.

The roster: Ajay Agrawal, Bengio, Sanja Fidler, John Graham, Gillian Hadfield, Jordan Jacobs, Eric Lamarre, Pisano, Senator Thomas Pitfield, Jody Thomas, Louis Vachon, and Cloudflare co-founder Michelle Zatlyn, with Patrick Pichette serving ex officio. The group also includes "a former national security adviser under Carney's predecessor, Justin Trudeau."

The lineup pairs builders with a prominent safety voice. Bengio, described in the CBC piece as "considered one of the godfathers of AI," has long argued for precautionary guardrails; the rest of the panel leans on technology executives and public-sector figures.

The announcement arrived alongside a CAD 150 million commitment to LawZero, Bengio's non-profit, for what the government calls "safe-by-design AI." Two of the AI researchers tracked in our Who's Who posted the CBC story the same day.