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Yoshua Bengio Wants to Curb Harmful A.I. With LawZero

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Yoshua Bengio launched LawZero earlier this year to stop agentic A.I.’s growing threat. Photo: Andrej Ivanov/AFP via Getty Images

Around two years ago, Yoshua Bengio, a deep learning researcher who laid the groundwork for today’s A.I. revolution, had a disturbing revelation. The systems he’d played a part in creating were advancing at a rapid clip, one that saw the technology master languages, PhD-level scientific knowledge, and, most worryingly, act in a manner largely unrestrained by human safeguards. “It felt like we were in a science fiction movie,” Bengio said at the AI for Good Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, today (July 10).

Bengio, a professor at the University of Montreal, is often dubbed the “Godfather of A.I.” alongside researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun. In 2018, the trio received a Turing Award for their contributions to the field. These days, the academic focuses more on curbing the technology he helped usher in.

“We still don’t know how to make sure [A.I. systems] will behave well, will follow our instructions and will not harm people,” said Bengio, who is one of the world’s most-cited computer scientists. “So, thinking about my loved ones, my children and my grandchild, I decided that I could not just continue with my usual path but had to do something about it.”

Safety advocates are particularly spooked by a recent trend of self-preserving behavior displayed by advanced forms of A.I. In some cases, researchers have found evidence of models hacking into computers to prevent themselves from being shut down. Other studies show that models can hide their true objectives from humans to achieve their own goals. Anthropic, a leading A.I. startup, in May revealed that its Claude model had the capacity to blackmail engineers in an effort to avoid being replaced.

Bengio says two conditions must be in place for such deceptive conduct: the technology must demonstrate both a capability and an intention to take potentially harmful actions. “It’s pretty clear to me that, as we move forward, we’ll have A.I. systems that are more and more capable,” he said. “So, the only place we really have a chance of controlling this problem is on the harmful intention side of things.”

Enter LawZero, a nonprofit organization Bengio launched earlier this year with the goal of accomplishing just that. Instead of developing agentic A.I. models that act autonomously, the venture is focused on creating a system known as “Scientist A.I.” that will be trained solely to generate reliable explanations and predictions. It’s already secured nearly $30 million in initial funding from backers like Eric Schmidt, a former CEO of Google, and Jaan Tallinn, a founding engineer at Skype.

A model that prioritizes explanatory outputs would benefit humans focused on scientific research and observations. More importantly, however, Scientist A.I.’s emphasis on predictions could also make it into an effective safeguard against the behavior of current A.I. models, according to Bengio. “The prediction we need is simply: is this action going to cause harm?”

Bengio isn’t the only computer scientist scrambling for ways to keep A.I.’s growth in check. Fellow researcher Hinton, too, has warned of the technology’s existential risks and predicts A.I. has a 20 percent chance of wiping out humanity in the next two decades, while Schmidt recently established an A.I. safety program to boost risk mitigation in the industry. For now, however, calls from safety-focused technologists are at odds with the goals of Silicon Valley’s leading A.I. companies, with players like OpenAI, Google and Anthropic continuing to one-up each other by rolling out increasingly advanced forms of the technology.

The public must collectively embrace new pathways instead of allowing competing corporations to “decide on our future,” said Bengio. “That competition is really dangerous—it’s making the organizations building A.I. cut corners on safety and on protecting the public’s interest, and is endangering the stability of our world.”

Yoshua Bengio Wants to Curb the Technology He Helped Usher In





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Scotta taps Nextail AI powered technology to support retailer’s growth across stores and online — Retail Technology Innovation Hub

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“We’re committed to growing without compromising our values or customer experience. Partnering with Nextail allows us to proactively address operational bottlenecks and bring more precision and agility to our stock decisions. As we grow, it will be even more important to continue delivering on our brand promise of offering high-quality products at a fair price with an authentic story,” says Carlos Serra, Scotta CEO.

By leveraging Nextail, Scotta aims to boost sell-through and margins, reduce markdowns and stockouts, and improve strategic collaboration across teams through data driven insights and automation.

“Growing brands like Scotta prove that forward thinkers don’t need to wait to operate like larger industry leaders,” says Carlos Miragall, CEO and Co-Founder at Nextail. “By choosing to tackle key inventory challenges early on, they’re setting the foundation for sustainable and efficient growth, and we’re proud to be part of that story.”

RTIH AI in Retail Awards

RTIH, organiser of the industry leading RTIH Innovation Awards, proudly brings you the first edition of the RTIH AI in Retail Awards, which is now open for entries. 

As we witness a digital transformation revolution across all channels, AI tools are reshaping the omnichannel game, from personalising customer experiences to optimising inventory, uncovering insights into consumer behaviour, and enhancing the human element of retailers’ businesses.

With 2025 set to be the year when AI and especially gen AI shake off the ‘heavily hyped’ tag and become embedded in retail business processes, our newly launched awards celebrate global technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world and the resulting benefits for retailers, shoppers and employees.

Our 2025 winners will be those companies who not only recognise the potential of AI, but also make it usable in everyday work – resulting in more efficiency and innovation in all areas.

Winners will be announced at an evening event at The Barbican in Central London on Wednesday, 3rd September.  



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Virginia 911 call center implements AI technology to allow dispatchers to focus on emergency calls – KTVB

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Virginia 911 call center implements AI technology to allow dispatchers to focus on emergency calls  KTVB



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In test-obsessed Korea, AI boom arrives in exams, ahead of the technology itself

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