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Proposal for a Multilateral Network of Public Good AI Research Labs to Protect Democracy and Humanity

Published 12 September 2023 by yoshuabengio

I have been thinking about this question for several months: what if AI continues to progress towards and beyond our abilities in areas where it could become dangerous, and what if our regulations won’t be 100% fullproof, opening the door to seriously harmful misuse by bad actors, historically never seen concentration of power and existential threats to our collective future? Even if this were a low-probability event, given the high stakes, should we have a plan B? I have been wondering about this because I would like to help minimize those catastropic risks, with both my public voice and my expertise in machine learning. As this article explains, I suggest the creation of a multilateral network of non-profit and non-governmental labs collaborating on the defense of democracy, human rights and against eventual rogue autonomous AIs and I explain why. The proposal hinges on avoiding a single point of failure, avoiding excessive power concentration (economic, political and military) and strong internationally and democratically mandated governance mechanisms. The paper is now out in the Journal of Democracy.

Published in Uncategorized

Recognized worldwide as one of the leading experts in artificial intelligence, Yoshua Bengio is most known for his pioneering work in deep learning, earning him the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, “the Nobel Prize of Computing,” with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun.

He is Full Professor at Université de Montréal, and the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila – Quebec AI Institute. He co-directs the CIFAR Learning in Machines & Brains program as Senior Fellow and acts as Scientific Director of IVADO.

In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Killam Prize and in 2022, became the computer scientist with the highest impact in the world as measured by h-index. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of London and Canada, Knight of the Legion of Honor of France, Officer of the Order of Canada, Member of the UN’s Scientific Advisory Board for Independent Advice on Breakthroughs in Science and Technology since 2023 and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair.

Concerned about the social impact of AI, he actively contributed to the Montreal Declaration for the Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence

Recognized worldwide as one of the leading experts in artificial intelligence, Yoshua Bengio is most known for his pioneering work in deep learning, earning him the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, “the Nobel Prize of Computing,” with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun.

He is Full Professor at Université de Montréal, and the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila – Quebec AI Institute. He co-directs the CIFAR Learning in Machines & Brains program as Senior Fellow and acts as Scientific Director of IVADO.

In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Killam Prize and for several years has been the computer scientist with the greatest impact in terms of citations, as measured by the h-index. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of London and Canada, Knight of the Legion of Honor of France, Officer of the Order of Canada, Member of the UN’s Scientific Advisory Board for Independent Advice on Breakthroughs in Science and Technology since 2023 and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair.

Concerned about the social impact of AI, he actively contributed to the Montreal Declaration for the Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence and currently chairs the International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI.