Ecosystem
The Montréal AI safety ecosystem
Research labs, policy institutes, student groups, and community organizations working on AI safety, ethics, and governance in and around Montréal.
- Biweekly research seminar series at Mila inviting authors to present their own AI safety papers. Email us to get connected.
- Federal government AI safety institute. Funds research through CIFAR and NRC programs, develops safety tools/guidance. Member of International Network of AI Safety Institutes.
- Student club at McGill focused on AI alignment and safety; organizes reading groups, hackathons and related activities.
- Canada's national AI strategy, administered by CIFAR: research chairs, the three national AI institutes, and programs on AI's societal impacts and safety.
- Research centre at McGill's Max Bell School focused on AI governance, transparency and democratic oversight. Publishes analyses and convenes workshops informing Canadian and international policy.
- Youth-led group (formerly Encode Canada) building AI literacy and early-career capacity through student fellowships, workshops, and public events.
- Goodheart is building AI systems to safely accelerate R&D of defensive technologies to create a world robust to powerful AI.
- ControlAI is a global non-profit organization that works to prevent the extinction risk posed by superintelligence and to secure a great future for humanity. In addition to the UK, the US, and Germany, it is active in Canada, where it has briefed over 150 lawmakers, given expert testimony in hearings, and more.
- Montréal-based nonprofit hub supporting local AI safety, ethics and governance community through meetups, coworking, workshops and collaborations.
- Independent organization managing Montréal hub of GPAI Network of Centres. Implements high-impact applied projects for responsible AI based on ethics and human rights.
- Multi-year research program on AI safety across axes: evaluating harmful behaviors, understanding AI decision-making, algorithmic approaches for safe AI.
- Technical AI safety research group at Mila led by David Krueger. Research in misgeneralization, mechanistic interpretability, and reward specification.
- Nonprofit AI safety research organization launched by Yoshua Bengio. Focuses on non-agentic 'Scientist AI' architecture as alternative to frontier lab approaches.
- Academic deep learning research center with 140+ affiliated professors. Technical alignment, interpretability, responsible AI development.
- International non-profit founded 2018 that equips citizens concerned about AI and its societal impacts to take action. Produces AI Ethics Brief and State of AI Ethics reports.
- Public meetup community hosting talks, workshops, discussions on AI governance, ethics and safety. Co-organized with Horizon Omega.
- Inter-university observatory on societal impacts of AI. Network of researchers from Quebec institutions publishing research across 7 thematic hubs.
- Volunteer community advocating to mitigate AI risks and pause development of superhuman AI until safe.
- Student group at UQAM raising awareness of AI risks through outreach, plain-language explanation, and public mobilization.