Alan Mackworth

What the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting reveals about regulating AI | CBC News Can AI systems reliably detect real threats? And where’s the line between safety and privacy? Following the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., questions are mounting about what artificial intellige...

“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.

Eby says it looks like OpenAI could have prevented 'horrific' Tumbler Ridge killings VICTORIA - British Columbia Premier David Eby said it "looks like" OpenAI had the opportunity to prevent the recent mass shootings in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., in which nine people died,

"[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

OpenAI safety reps called to Ottawa after Tumbler Ridge, B.C., mass shooting: minister | CBC News Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon has called representatives of OpenAI to Ottawa to discuss safety concerns after learning the killer in the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., was banne...

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

Drs. Mackworth and Poole recognized for making AI education accessible to students worldwide

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

Carney mulling $1B membership to Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ The Canadian PM said the POTUS invite came "a few weeks ago."

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

Why Are Grok and X Still Available in App Stores? Elon Musk’s chatbot has been used to generate thousands of sexualized images of adults and apparent minors. Apple and Google have removed other “nudify” apps—but continue to host X and Grok.

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.

Canadian government officials, what are you still doing on X in 2026? The platform's own chatbot started posting sexualized material of children and other people who couldn't consent. With no moral bottom in sight, it's well past time our officials found other ways to c...

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...

🧵...

AI Lies to You Because It Thinks That's What You Want AI is being trained to please users and, in doing so, is becoming indifferent to the truth.

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...

Joelle Pineau, Beyond Bellman's Legacy - RLC 2025 YouTube video by Amii

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

Cover of AI text "Artificial Intelligence" by David Poole and Alan Mackworth. With a background image of neurons.

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

Reddit post on r/technology about young people and AI: "I recently heard about a teacher who instead of trying to circumvent students using AI, which is impossible, she made assignments by going "ask ChatGPT to write a report on this subject, and then research how and why it's wrong". Not only did the students discover that ChatGPT is extremely wrong a lot of the time, it also lead them to realise that they should not use it as a primary source".

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

If it had a body, it could test its theory with the experiment. Then it could debug its reasoning.

How Your Cheese-Powered Baby Trounces AI An O.G. AI Researcher on How Being Social and Cultural Makes us Intelligent--and Whether Machines Can Ever Learn Empathy

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

Trump says ‘highly unlikely’ U.S. ever uses military force to annex Canada U.S. President Donald Trump says it is 'highly unlikely' the United States would ever use military force to annex Canada.

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

Completely unacceptable.

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

A screenshot of a google sheet, too complex to describe in full; see this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gw9lxWhhTxjjTstyAKliwdy75VHXLtCDxCPFJhe5pPQ/edit?usp=sharing

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