“We just can't rely on the companies to voluntarily stand up,” says Dr. Alan Mackworth, UBC computer science prof. emeritus. “There needs to be some public accountability by having a regulatory agency with enforcement powers to check standards.” @cs.ubc.ca @alanmackworth.bsky.social bit.ly/3N2V3rH

Several points: 1) Iran's regime is odious. Its citizens deserve support. 2) That does not mean an attack will help. 3) Canada will find it hard to be so selective in its support for international law. 4) Canada does not benefit from a US administration unbound by the US constitution.

"[Duty to report] obligations are enshrined in law and/or professional ethics. Similar obligations should be placed on social media and AI companies." @alanmackworth.bsky.social discusses AI safety as OpenAI is called to Ottawa over the Tumbler Ridge shooter's AI interactions buff.ly/eHBfD9t

Computer scientist Dr. Alan Mackworth said that many professionals, such as teachers and doctors, have a "duty to report" any suspected case of harm to or abuse of a minor. "Similar obligations should be placed on social media and AI companies." @cs.ubc.ca @alanmackworth.bsky.social bit.ly/4ayhYnU

UBC Computer Science Professors Emeriti Alan Mackworth and David Poole were awarded the AAAI/EAAI Patrick Henry Winston Outstanding Educator Award for developing free online resources to learn foundations of AI. Congratulations! Read more: www.cs.ubc.ca/news/2026/02...

Yesterday, @mark-carney.bsky.social may have given the most important speech of our era. Whether it proves to be so, however, depends on what happens next. If Canada is serious about charting a third way, it must act—notably in deploying to Greenland, and saying no to the "Board of Peace."

This post to Truth Social requires an immediate response from the international community and either impeachment or invocation of the 25th amendment by Congress. Republicans, you are sleepwalking the world towards an entirely preventable catastrophe.

Delighted to receive this award with @davpoole.bsky.social. @cs.ubc.ca @aaai.org Talk details here aaai.org/conference/a... #ai

Canada must not do this. It is a mockery of international political governance, legitimizing the idea that Trump can simply push aside other countries' sovereignty. www.politico.com/news/2026/01...

Honourable @evansolomon.bsky.social - my question to you is why isn't the GoC considering banning X considering the harm that platform is doing and the obvious We-Don't-Give-A-Shit attitude of its owner? Let's get this trending, people! #BanX #BanGrok

Thousands of people on X are using Grok to create sexualized images of adults + minors wearing minimal clothing. This not only violates X's own content policy, it may violate the guidelines of Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store: www.wired.com/story/x-grok...

In 2024, I rose in Senate QP to ask why the Govt of Canada was still using X for official communications. Today, they are still there. What exactly will it take to break the spell?

There’s an epidemic of people using Grok to do sexual violence to women on Twitter. Yet Canadian politicians, media etc have failed to adopt another platform en masse, making it near-impossible to fully disengage and be tapped in to vital conversations and information. What are we doing.

It's well past time for Canadian government officials to get off of X, @jameswsthomson.com writes. This latest — disgusting — incident is just one more reason.

Highly recommended read for anyone in AI/Robotics. Complete with @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social's usual acerbic wit and hype-busting. Nice elucidation of the distinction between situated AI and embodied AI, with an argument that we need both. #AI #robotics

UPDATE: If you want to speak (in person or by phone) at tomorrow's important city council meeting – at which these proposed Vancouver budget cuts will be considered – you can sign up here (BUT NOTE: the deadline to sign up is 5:00pm today, Nov 11): vancouver.ca/your-governm... 🧵...

more to be said here than could ever fit in such a short article but it covers some of it, and happy to get a few quotes in it (no paywall I think) www.cnet.com/tech/service...

Excellent talk by Joëlle Pineau at the Reinforcement Learning Conference (RLC 2025) youtu.be/PZcaMKxljxc?...

The 3rd edition of "Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents" by @davpoole.bsky.social & @alanmackworth.bsky.social is freely available. artint.info You can order a hardcopy of the book for 30% off and free shipping through mid-September: lnkd.in/gzbyUpKt Code: 102519 #AI

This is one of the best ideas I've heard in ages.

I was interviewed by the journalist Jessica Nordell for her newsletter. We discussed some deep questions related to AI touching on humanities, politics, & dualistic assumptions underlying the conception of "intelligence" in AI. I hope you will read it! jessicanordell.substack.com/cp/166912581

Off-cycle faculty position in AI at Queen's University School of Computing!! employment.cs.queensu.ca/2025/05/06/c... The framing of the position is so that it opens the pool to both anyone who does research in an AI sub-field, or uses AI largely for their research (AI applied to X). 1/3

Revisiting this classic from Paul Cisek today- "Resynthesizing behavior through phylogenetic refinement" link.springer.com/content/pdf/... Fave figure: "conceptual taxonomy implicit in mainstream cognitive science" ––which the article proceeds to systematically undermine/dismantle

Dear Democrats + American "friends" Even when your president says it is "unlikely" that he will use military force against our country it still worthy of a resounding response. Right? But we hear crickets. You might be okay with the end of the rule of law. Not us. www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...

Prime Minister Mark Carney 🇨🇦 "Large American online platforms have become seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia and hate in all its forms ... My government will act." #cdnpoli

US students. Looking to apply to graduate school? Had an offer rescinded recently? The University of British Columbia in Canada will re-open the application portal in some departments for US students from April 14-18. Details: www.grad.ubc.ca/us-applicant... #ubc #AcademicSky #PhDSky #ScienceSky

Random #EduSky aside in dark times: I just learned that Russell & Norvig's dominant textbook for #AI survey courses has a challenger in Poole & Mackworth's book, which is much heavier on stochastic ML approaches than the former (as opposed to symbolic, logical ones). I wonder who's winning... 🤔

I couldn't find a list of Artificial Intelligence Researcher in Canada who are on Blue Sky, but every day there are more and more coming over from the other place. So here's my Starter Pack for it! Drop me a line in the responses to let me know who I'm missing. go.bsky.app/3HYHS4r

X Threatens Our Democracy. Canada Should Ban It The risks of election interference, misinformation and attempts to support a US takeover are too great. #Canada #BanTwitter thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025...

🇨🇦🇺🇦“I stand with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And I stand with the people of Ukraine,” - Justin Trudeau Prime Minister of Canada

Who needs yet another report on The Future of AI Research aaai.org/about-aaai/p.... Well, you do! I was lucky to lead the Embodied AI theme. It was fun to step back and rethink the very idea of intelligence as action not just thinking. Dive into the report and let us know what you think.

Today we published the report from the AAAI 2025 Presidential Panel on the Future of AI Research. You can download it from here: aaai.org/about-aaai/p.... It's designed to be readable by a general audience. Enjoy!

An article from “La Presse”. à Montréal paper. Trudeau has a great historical opportunity… let us see if he takes it! lp.ca/3wzha3?shari...

Congratulations Donald Trump, you have united all three of Canada’s largest political parties against you!

Ppl are talking about "picking up" scholars leaving the US bc of cutbacks, but that's not the right way to think about talent flows. Few USians will leave US; rather US will cease to be the unrivalled academic destination point. The play is for intl scholars who otherwise would have gone to US.

'Welcome to Sen̓áḵw': A sneak peek inside Canada's largest Indigenous-led housing development #BritishColumbia CBC Vancouver’s The Early Edition was offered a tour of the building as part of a special live broadcast www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Seems like as good a day as any to link to this shirt in the Beaverton's merch store.

Here’s a plan. Add in NSF grants too.

Important work on learning Probabilistic Circuits showing how to incorporate domain knowledge as constraints

Canada's limit is $1,650 per party. Plus a limit of $1,650 toward split between individual candidates. For a total contribution limit of $3,300. The limit increases modestly every year. in 2025, it will increase to a total contribution limit of $3,500.

The late Suchir Balaji’s blog post on AI, copyright and fair use, reposted in his memory. suchir.net/fair_use.html

Check it out at AIPython.org! Comments welcome.

Canadian news orgs sue OpenAI for copyright violation. "OpenAI is capitalizing and profiting from the use of this content, without getting permission or compensating content owners," www.cbc.ca/news/busines...

Emissions from the world's largest fossil fuel project - the Canadian tarsands, are up to 6,300% higher than reported: https://buff.ly/497ucjB If we want a future, this is a project we need to stop. #ActOnClimate #climate #energy #renewables #cdnpoli #abpoli

That’s the bitter lesson for The Bitter Lesson.

It’s finally here! Holding my new book in my hands feels surreal—and exciting. "The Naked Android: Synthetic Socialness and the Human Gaze" (Routledge/CRC Press). #ai #robots #ux #tech #science #interviews 🤖🧪📚 tinyurl.com/nakedandroid

Do you know about the 'digital afterlife' or 'grief-bots'? Simulations of deceased loved ones are a reality and an ethical minefield. The impact on children is particularly concerning. As we embrace technological advancement, let's prioritise the safety of our younger generations. (Link in comments)

“Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents” (3rd Edition) by @davpoole.bsky.social and @alanmackworth.bsky.social is available in hardcopy and with full, free, open access online: artint.info. Check out the endorsements: artint.info#endorsements