McGill AI Podcast

Yves Hilpisch: How AI is Shaping the Future of Computational Finance

The podcast team is excited to announce the McGill Artificial Intelligence Society’s 3rd podcast episode of the 2023-2024 school year featuring Yves Hilpisch.  Yves is the founder and CEO of The Python Quants and has written several books, including Python for Finance.  In recent years, AI has been in the forefront of computational finance and algorithmic trading. As the accessibility of AI increases, building our own financial models has become easier with programming languages like Pytho...

Ignacio Cofone: Redrawing Privacy Lines with AI Regulation

The podcast team is excited to announce the McGill Artificial Intelligence Society’s 2nd podcast episode of the 2023-2024 school year featuring Ignacio Cofone.  Ignacio Cofone is a professor at McGill’s Faculty of Law and is the Canada Research Chair in AI Law and Data Governance. With the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence in recent years, there are also many concerns at the forefront. This episode tackles current topics like the effects of bias in AI, the intersection between AI a...

Artem Kirsanov: Perspectives on the Intersection Between AI and Neuroscience

Artem Kirsanov is a graduate student in neuroscience at New York University Center for Neural Science and a YouTuber with a following of over 100k subscribers. In this episode, we talk about modelling the human brain with artificial intelligence, how AI is being used to enhance neuroscience, and what a future alongside AI can look like for scientists.

Doina Precup: Exploring Frontiers of Reinforcement Learning

Embark on an enlightening journey into the world of reinforcement learning with Prof. Doina Precup in this captivating podcast episode. As a distinguished professor at McGill University and the Head of DeepMind Montreal, Prof. Precup brings a wealth of expertise to our discussion. Join us as we delve into the intricacies of hierarchical reinforcement learning, navigating the complexities of decision-making processes. Explore the realm of continual reinforcement learning, where adaptability h...

Chloë Ryan, Katherine Beaulieu & Kussil Oumedjbeur: Generative AI & Art

The advent of powerful generative AI models - particularly in the art space - has enabled limitless creative opportunities. In this episode, we discuss both the usage benefits and the importance of regulating generative AI in this space from a diverse stakeholder perspective. Chloë Ryan, CEO and founder of Acrylic Robotics - a fast-growing pre-seed art-tech startup, Katherine Beaulieu, a BCL/JD Candidate at the McGill Faculty of Law & member of Tech Law, and Dr. Kussil Oumedjbeur, a current ...

Su Lin Blodgett & Fenwick McKelvey: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on AI Ethics

What does it mean for an artificial intelligence model to do the right thing? What are researchers and governments doing to ensure that the use of AI technologies does not infringe on human rights? These are two of the questions that we touch on in this conversation with Dr. Su Lin Blodgett and Prof. Fenwick McKelvey. The world of AI has seen an explosion of progress in recent years and this has opened up exciting new applications for these models. However, the issue of reflecting human bias...

Yoshua Bengio: Towards Achieving Human-Level AI

Yoshua Bengio, co-laureate of the 2018 ACM AM Turing Award for his pioneering contributions in deep learning and recognized worldwide as one of the leading experts in artificial intelligence, joins us on the McGill AI Podcast to discuss his experience in pioneering deep learning, the work towards achieving human-level artificial intelligence, and advice to students wanting to do research in AI. He is a Full Professor at Université de Montréal, and the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila...

Yoshua Bengio: Towards Achieving Human Level AI

Yoshua Bengio, co-laureate of the 2018 ACM AM Turing Award for his pioneering contributions in deep learning and recognized worldwide as one of the leading experts in artificial intelligence, joins us on the McGill AI Podcast to discuss his experience in pioneering deep learning, the work towards achieving human-level artificial intelligence, and advice to students wanting to do research in AI. He is a Full Professor at Université de Montréal, and the Founder and Scientific Director of Mila...

Dan Cervone: Machine Learning in Sports

Dr. Dan Cervone is the principal data scientist at Zelus Analytics where they are building the world leading sports analytics platform. Prior to this, Dan spent three seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers, most recently as Director of Quantitative Research. He completed his PhD in Statistics at Harvard University, and was then a Moore-Sloan Data Science Fellow at NYU. His work focuses on spatiotemporal data and hierarchical models, with particular application to sports analytics and player tr...

Guillaume Lajoie: Interfacing the Brain

Guillaume is an assistant professor at Université de Montréal, Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Core Academic Member at Mila, is a research scholar at FRQS (Fonds de recherche du Québec), and has research center affiliations with UNIQUE (Unifying Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence - Québec), CIRCA (Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur le cerveau et l'apprentissage), and CRM (Centre de Recherches Mathématiques). He joins us to talk about  how AI influences neuroscience, the mathematics behi...

Jackie CK Cheung: AI & Language

 Jackie Cheung is an associate professor at McGill, Canada CIFAR AI Chair, researching with Mila, the Reasoning and Learning Lab, Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music and the Centre for Intelligent Machines. He sits down with us to talk about the  history and change in the field of NLP, common sense reasoning and summarization, AI deployment in practice, and advice for students looking to get into research.

Jackie CK Cheung: AI & Language

 Jackie Cheung is an associate professor at McGill, Canada CIFAR AI Chair, researching with Mila, the Reasoning and Learning Lab, Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music and the Centre for Intelligent Machines. He sits down with us to talk about the  history and change in the field of NLP, common sense reasoning and summarization, AI deployment in practice, and advice for students looking to get into research.

Blake Richards: Parallels Between the Brain & AI

Professor Blake Richards is a leading researcher at the intersection of neuroscience and AI. He is an assistant professor at McGill, a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, and a core faculty member at Mila. His research explores the general principles of learning and memory in neural networks and tries to understand how real and artificial brains can optimise behaviour.

David Rolnick: AI for Climate Change

Professor David Rolnick is an assistant professor at McGill, Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Mila researcher and a member of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35. He joins the podcast to talk about how machine learning can be applied to tackling climate change, deep learning theory, AI in the public sector, ethics and advice for students.

Introduction