There are no two letters more disruptive in our time than AI. We’re told it will create employment yet take jobs away; invent life-saving medicines yet enable superviruses; solve the climate crisis yet deepen it. So will it save us or damn us? Is AI the ultimate disruptor?

This conversation, moderated by Nahlah Ayed, was part of the 2026 Charles Bronfman’s “Conversations” series.

Guests in this episode:

Yoshua Bengio is a professor at Université de Montreal. He also has the distinction of being the most-cited living scientist in the world, in any discipline. He’s co-president and scientific director of LawZero, a nonprofit startup dedicated to creating safe AI systems. In 2018, he was a recipient of the Turing Award, often referred to as the Nobel Prize of Computer Science.

Cory Doctorow is a novelist, journalist, technology activist and the author of an astonishing number of books, both nonfiction and fiction. Among them: Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What To Do About It. And the upcoming: The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI.

Astra Taylor is a documentary filmmaker, cofounder of the Debt Collective, and a writer. Among her books: Democracy May Not Exist But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone, and The People’s Platform, which won the American Book Award. Taylor also delivered the 2023 CBC Massey Lectures called The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart.

On White Coat, Black Art, trusted ER doctor Brian Goldman brings you honest and surprising stories that can change your health and your life. Expect deep conversations with patients, families and colleagues that show you what is and isn't working in Canadian healthcare.

“Pistol” Pete Pearson, a 76-year-old living with a terminal lung disease, says psilocybin-assisted therapy transformed his end-of-life distress after he accessed it outside the medical system. While psilocybin remains illegal in Canada, researchers including UHN psychiatrist Dr. Joshua Rosenblat are running government-funded trials exploring its potential for mood disorders. More episodes of White Coat, Black Art are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/WCBAxIDEAS

It’s easy to admit to having biases, but much harder to pin down what they are, let alone figure out what to do about them. Nevertheless, IDEAS producer Tom Howell gives it his best shot. He looks into what the rewards might be, if we could name and identify our own most important biases.

This episode is part one of a three-part series exploring the meaning of 'bias.' It originally aired on Sept. 7, 2021.

As a former negotiator of the Oslo Accords for Israel, British-Israeli author and analyst, Daniel Levy, has both a diagnosis and a prescription for the land he refers to as Palestine-Israel. He says the two-state solution is “spent” and argues we need new ideas about how Israelis and Palestinians can co-exist peacefully.

Some of the biggest minds may have you thinking a Terminator-like robot is coming for us. For years, fictional works — whether film or literature — have shaped our idea of what artificial intelligence is and how it could impact the human race. But it's not real. An important fact to acknowledge says Teresa Heffernan, a professor who has studied the relationship between AI and fiction for decades. She argues there are lots of reasons to fear artificial intelligence but an android uprising isn’t one of them.

Heffernan is a professor of English language and literature at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. She delivered the 2026 Wiegand Memorial Foundation Lecture at the Jackman Humanities Institute | University of Toronto.

Aaron Williams has worked in fisheries, as a forest fighter and is currently an airport ramp agent. When he's not working, he's writing about work: the hard kind, requiring bodily energy and mental endurance. Physical labour has always been a part of his life. He grew up in a logging family. In this podcast, Williams talks about the challenges, rewards and changing realities of hard work.

Aaron William's memoir is called The Last Logging Show: A Forest Family at the End of an Era (Harbour Publishing). The book received the 2025 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction. His public talk was recorded at the awards ceremony at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

The Trump administration has been targeting higher education for some time now — freezing grants and filing lawsuits against leading universities. But these threats are not limited to the U.S. and there are growing concerns about a potential spillover effect on Canadian campuses. In this podcast, host Nahlah Ayed speaks with three panelists to explore what's at stake with the politicized attacks on universities — and why it matters to all of us.

This discussion was recorded in front of an audience at the Isabel Theatre in Toronto.

Guests in this episode:

Malinda S. Smith is an associate vice president research and a professor of political science at the University of Calgary. She is the co-editor of Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy: Teaching, Learning, and Researching While Black.

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he also serves as the university’s advisor on civil discourse, the first position of its kind in Canada.

Davide Panagia is professor and chair of political science at UCLA, where his work bridges philosophy, media and democratic life. Before that, he held the Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at Trent University.

How? Some scientists believe in the power of nuclear fusion. Environmentally, these machines would have the potential to meet our energy needs with zero carbon cost. But the other advantage is removing a significant motivation behind war — the control of energy sources. Think about it. The Middle East would look a lot different today. This podcast explores what the transition to fusion energy would entail from the challenges, the rewards and the risks.

Guest in this episode:

Mustafa Bahran is a physics professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. He came to Canada after his life in Yemen became too dangerous. There he founded the Yemeni Scientific Research Foundation and National Atomic Energy Commission.

Greg Twinney is the the CEO of General Fusion.

Mike Donaldson is senior vice president in technology development at General Fusion.

Michael Mann is a climate scientist and director at the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media.

JC Btaiche is founder and CEO of a nuclear fusion company called Fuse.