With funding from Google, the University of Toronto (U of T) has created a new role named after artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer Geoffrey Hinton to honour his legacy and help bring another prominent AI expert to the university.
“I am encouraged that the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence will support the next generation of AI research in the same vein.”
Geoffrey Hinton
The Hinton Chair in AI is being financed with $10 million CAD from Google—Hinton’s former employer—and a matching contribution from U of T. The role was announced this evening at a NeurIPS conference event in San Diego.
The university says this $20-million investment makes the position one of U of T’s “most prestigious and generously supported advanced research roles.” It includes endowed support for a leading AI researcher as well as additional funds allocated to fuel fundamental discoveries and insights.
U of T says this position and eventual hire will help bring new AI talent to Canada. The appointee will work on AI research across medicine, engineering, scientific discovery, and the humanities. They will be tasked with recruiting, teaching, and training students, inspiring AI startups, and expanding the university’s AI networks and international partnerships.
Efforts to slash funding for research and put pressure on American universities under United States (US) President Donald Trump have led postsecondary institutions in other countries to try and lure talented US scientists away.
U of T has been campaigning to attract some of them to Canada, most recently hiring three top US scholars, including economists and husband-and-wife Mark Duggan from Stanford University and Jacquelyn Pless from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as Canadian-born astrophysicist Sara Seager, also of MIT.
Hinton, a British-Canadian who has been described as a ‘godfather of AI,’ is a former Google leader, U of T professor emeritus, and Nobel Laureate who has played a key role in the development of AI and spent his recent years warning against their potentially disastrous effects of those systems, if left unchecked.
“I am grateful for having been able to pursue my research at the University of Toronto, which afforded me the time and resources to develop the ideas that would eventually grow into the success of neural nets,” Hinton said in a statement. “I am encouraged that the Hinton Chair in Artificial Intelligence will support the next generation of AI research in the same vein, allowing ideas of great promise to germinate for the benefit of all humanity.”
Feature image courtesy the University of Toronto. Photo by Nick Iwanyshyn.