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AI is moving into a more consequential phase. These systems are no longer just answering questions. They are starting to influence decisions, enter workflows, and reshape the infrastructure of work and public life. That makes the central question on AI bigger than performance alone. It becomes a question of safety, trust, control, and sovereignty.
In this episode of Disruptors, John Stackhouse speaks with Yoshua Bengio, one of the foundational figures in modern artificial intelligence. Bengio received the 2018 Turing Award for work that helped make deep neural networks central to computing, founded Mila in Montreal, and now leads LawZero, a nonprofit advancing safe-by-design AI. At the centre of that work is Scientist AI, which LawZero describes as non-agentic AI designed to understand, evaluate, and provide oversight rather than pursue goals on its own.
John is also joined by Jaxson Khan, Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and co-author of Sovereign by Design: Strategic Options for Canadian AI Sovereignty. Together, they examine why AI sovereignty now matters at the individual, corporate, and national level, and what is at stake for Canada as Ottawa moves toward a renewed national AI strategy. The conversation looks at AI safety, the limits of current evaluation, the risks and promise of agentic systems, the U.S. CLOUD Act and foreign infrastructure dependence, and the growing importance of trustworthy AI in finance, government, and other high-stakes settings.
If the next wave of AI is not just about what these systems can do, but what kind of intelligence societies should trust, this episode is the place to start.
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