Faculty of Information

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Political Science

Artificial intelligence presents new opportunities to strengthen democracy even as it threatens to cast a shadow over election integrity and further the spread of misinformation.

In the fifth episode of What Now? AI, ��ɫֱ�� hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan are joined by experts Harper Reed and Peter Loewen, who is also from ��ɫֱ��, to explore the impact of AI on the political realm.

Listen to episode five on Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, iHeartRadio and Amazon. Watch episode five on YouTube.

Loewen, director of ��ɫֱ��’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and a professor in the department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science, explains how AI removes the human touch from politics, potentially making the public uneasy.

“We still don't like the fact that it might be a machine that we're talking to,” said Loewen, who is also the associate director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.

“But then if you layer on this dimension of not knowing if this is actually the campaign that’s doing it, I think that’s probably orders of magnitude worse because what it does is it takes us from the realm of kind of feeling uneasy about something into feeling like this thing is corrupted.”

Reed, meanwhile, spoke about his experience as the chief technology officer on former U.S. president Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.

“The technology we built was not about convincing someone at the time that Mitt Romney was a bad person or a good person,” said Reed during a conversation with Coleman about AI and democracy that was filmed live at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society’s annual conference Absolutely Interdisciplinary, a portion of which was used in the podcast episode.

“The tech was more about making sure you got to vote.”

When asked about the biggest threats to AI and democracy, Reed emphasized that he is less worried about the technology itself and more with ensuring it’s beneficial to societal use.

“I’m worried about who has access to it and how they are using it.”

About the hosts:

Beth Coleman is an associate professor at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and the Faculty of Information. She is also a research lead on AI policy and praxis at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. Coleman authored Reality Was Whatever Happened: Octavia Butler AI and Other Possible Worlds using art and generative AI.

Rahul Krishnan is an assistant professor in ��ɫֱ��’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. He is a Canada CIFAR Chair at the Vector Institute, a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a faculty member at the Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM).

Note: The artwork in the background of Peter Loewen’s interview belong to the Mirvish Family’s private collection. The large image, titled Floating Free, is by K.M. Graham. The smaller image is untitled and by the same artist.

What Now? AI, Episode 4: AI and Creativity

mattimar — Thu, 25 Apr 2024 21:22:39 +0000

What Now? AI, Episode 4: AI and Creativity mattimar Thu, 04/25/2024 - 17:22

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Alumni

Startups

Vector Institute

The creative industry is poised to be forever changed by artificial intelligence.

Writing tools like ChatGPT and image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E have exploded into the mainstream. Adobe built its own version of generative AI technology for its creative suites and OpenAI announced its text-to-video model, Sora.

What impact will these tools and models have on the creative process? How will they change the role of an artist?

In the fourth episode of What Now? AI, hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan dive into these questions with AI researchers Sanja Fidler of the ��ɫֱ�� and Nick Frosst, who co-founded the startup Cohere.

Listen to episode four on  Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, iHeartRadio and Amazon. Watch episode four on YouTube. 

Fidler, the vice president of AI research at NVIDIA and an associate professor of mathematical and computational sciences at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga, says that while AI technology is still in its early stage, it has the potential to provide artists with more adaptability and creative control.

“When artists see these methods like text-to-x, text-to-image or text-to-video, I feel that they have pushback because now there is only text that allows you to control the content,” says Fidler, an affiliate faculty member at the Vector Institute, which she co-founded.

“I think artists do want to have this iterative creative control. They have some idea in their head, and they have all these tools that allowed them to go from that idea into the final product. We want to do the same thing with AI as well.”

Frosst, who sings in the band Good Kid, says he doesn’t use large language models to help him write songs – only to help analyze lyrics and themes.

“I’m not really looking to optimize my artistic expression,” says Frosst, who completed his undergraduate degree in computer science and cognitive science at ��ɫֱ��.

“I don’t really want to write a new Good Kid song and be less involved. I want to be more involved.”

Frosst believes AI will change the way art is created, but not to the point where people aren’t interested in the artists who are making it.

“We want to know who made it, and that’s mostly what’s enjoyable about it.”

About the hosts:

What Now? AI, Episode 3: Innovation for Good

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 20:47:11 +0000

What Now? AI, Episode 3: Innovation for Good Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/18/2024 - 16:47

Topic

Unity Health

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Research & Innovation

Startups

While the news headlines about AI often focus on dangers and risks, the potential for life-saving innovation in fields such as health care is huge.

In the third episode of What Now? AI, co-hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan of the ��ɫֱ�� are joined by experts Christine Allen and Andrew Pinto to discuss AI’s potential to advance drug development and dramatically improve primary care.

Listen to episode three on Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, iHeartRadio and Amazon. Watch episode three on YouTube.

Allen, a professor in ��ɫֱ��’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and an expert in drug formulation and development, co-founded Intrepid Labs Inc. with Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a professor in the departments of chemistry and computer science in ��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Arts & Science.

One of the first startups to emerge from the Acceleration Consortium at ��ɫֱ��, Intrepid Labs is accelerating pharmaceutical drug development through the integration of AI, automation and advanced computing.

“It’s this concept of using AI to explore the unexplored,” Allen says.

“What if that formulation could really transform the properties and performance of your drug is one of those unexplored formulations. That will then take that drug through clinical development smoothly and get it to patients faster, which is really the goal.”

Meanwhile, Pinto, a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and director of the Upstream Lab, Unity Health Toronto, focuses his research on addressing the social determinants of health by running clinical trials of interventions and using AI tools for surveillance of respiratory illness.

“When we started to do this work around AI in primary care, we wanted to be directed by primary care providers and patients,” says Pinto, an associate professor in the department of family and community medicine in ��ɫֱ��’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Reducing health-care inequities is top of mind for Pinto. His lab focuses on implementing AI to prioritize community engagement and bridge socioeconomic gaps to mitigate biases.

“We’re using these tools to look at all of the patients in a population and then focus our attention on the people who need it most.”

About the hosts:

What Now? AI, Episode 2: Safe and Accountable

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 12:57:17 +0000

What Now? AI, Episode 2: Safe and Accountable Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/11/2024 - 08:57

Mariam Matti

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Research & Innovation

Vector Institute

As AI becomes more integrated into our lives, how do we make sure it aligns with our values while minimizing risks?

In the second episode of What Now? AI, hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan are joined by ��ɫֱ�� experts Gillian Hadfield and Roger Grosse as they tackle critical questions surrounding AI safety, regulation and alignment.

Listen to episode two on Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, iHeartRadio and Amazon. Watch episode two on YouTube.

Grosse, an associate professor of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and a founding member of the Vector Institute, joined the technical staff on the alignment team at Anthropic, an AI safety and research company based in San Francisco, during a sabbatical last year.

He calls working on AI research and systems while investigating safety a “difficult needle to thread.”

“As you move up the ladder of different AI capabilities, new requirements start kicking in – in terms of keeping the models secure from bad actors and being able to make sure they won’t intentionally carry out harmful plans,” says Grosse, a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.

Hadfield, a professor of law and strategic management in the Faculty of Law and the inaugural Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society, has proposed a national registry for large AI models. She thinks companies should disclose to governments what they’re building, the data being used and the AI model’s capabilities.

“This is a unique moment in human history,” says Hadfield, who holds a CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute for AI and served as a senior policy adviser to OpenAI from 2018 to 2023. “I think this is the first time that you have such a powerful technology that is being developed almost exclusively within private technology companies, so the public and the academic sector don’t have full visibility into how the technology is working.”

About the hosts:

Beth Coleman is an associate professor at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and the Faculty of Information. She is also a research lead on AI policy and praxis at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. Coleman authored Reality Was Whatever Happened: Octavia Butler AI and Other Possible Worlds using art and generative AI.

Rahul Krishnan is an assistant professor in ��ɫֱ��’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. He is a Canada CIFAR Chair at the Vector Institute, a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a faculty member at the Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM).

How will AI change our world? ��ɫֱ�� podcast explores technology’s impact on society

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 15:17:45 +0000

How will AI change our world? ��ɫֱ�� podcast explores technology’s impact on society

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 04/04/2024 - 11:17

Mariam Matti

Topic

Unity Health

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Alumni

CIFAR

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Geoffrey Hinton

Startups

Vector Institute

Subheadline

In What Now? AI, hosts Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan explore – and demystify – artificial intelligence and its impact on society with the help of leading experts

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence are posing profound questions about the future – and about us.

Can we ensure safety and alignment within AI systems? How might AI forever transform fields like health care? What ripple effects could AI have on jobs and livelihoods, including in creative industries?

��ɫֱ�� researchers Beth Coleman and Rahul Krishnan explore – and demystify – these and other topics by tapping into the knowledge of leading AI experts in What Now? AI, a new ��ɫֱ�� podcast that launches this week.

It can be found on Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio and Amazon.

An associate professor at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and the Faculty of Information, Coleman says she hopes the episodes help audiences make sense of new AI tools and systems by cutting through “all the noisiness and controversy that has taken over the headlines.”

“It can be complex and technical, but it’s also social,” says Coleman, a research lead on AI policy and praxis at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology & Society.

“What we do with AI makes a difference and more people need to be able to share that knowledge.”

Coleman’s own research centres around technology and society with a focus on data and cities, AI and policy, and generative arts. Inspired by Octavia Butler’s 1980 Xenogenesis trilogy, Coleman authored Reality Was Whatever Happened: Octavia Butler AI and Other Possible Worlds using art and generative AI.

Krishnan, meanwhile, is an assistant professor in ��ɫֱ��’s department of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. A Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute and Canada Research Chair in computational medicine, Krishnan and his team focus on teaching neural networks about causality, building deep learning models that analyze cause and effect from data.

“I’m excited to co-host this podcast to explore and demystify for a broader audience AI through the lens of an accomplished and diverse set of experts,” says Krishnan, who is also a faculty affiliate at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society and a faculty member at the Temerty Centre for AI Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM).

What Now? AI picks up where the conversation started last year by Geoffrey Hinton, the cognitive psychologist and University Professor emeritus of computer science who is known as the “Godfather of AI.” After a lifetime spent developing a type of AI known as deep learning, Hinton stepped back from his role at Google to warn about the existential threats of unchecked AI development.

Since then, there have been ongoing advancements in AI research, technological applications and policy development.

Coleman and Krishnan will tackle these and other topics with guests:

Gillian Hadfield, professor of law and strategic management at the Faculty of Law and the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society.
Roger Grosse, associate professor of computer science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and founding member of the Vector Institute.
Christine Allen, professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and co-founder and CEO of Intrepid Labs Inc.
Andrew Pinto, a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, and associate professor in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Nick Frosst, co-founder of Cohere, singer in Good Kid band and a ��ɫֱ�� computer science and cognitive science alumnus.

“The What Now? AI podcast highlights the incredible researchers at the ��ɫֱ�� who are exploring the profound implications of this transformative technology,” says Leah Cowen, ��ɫֱ��’s vice-president, research and innovation, and strategic initiatives. “These discussions tackle critical questions surrounding AI safety and alignment and its myriad implications across various domains.

“The university is committed to fostering informed discussions that will shape our collective understanding of AI’s role in our society and in our future.”

Coleman says she hopes listeners come away from the podcast feeling more grounded.

Krishnan, for his part, wants the audience to understand “that there is no one group that has ownership” over the technology” and that “the free exchange of ideas and open-source tools encourage people from all disciplines to come see how accessible AI can be, what AI can do for them and how they can advance the discourse in the field.”

Four AI trends to watch in 2024

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 17:02:40 +0000

Four AI trends to watch in 2024

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 01/19/2024 - 12:02

Cutline

AI was a hot topic at this week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (photo by Andy Barton/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Jovana Jankovic

Daniel Browne

Topic

Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Rotman School of Management

Global

Graduate Students

Research & Innovation

Subheadline

“The advancement of AI is moving quickly, and the year ahead holds a lot of promise but also a lot of unanswered questions”

As artificial intelligence continues to develop rapidly, the world is watching with excitement and apprehension – as evidenced by the AI buzz in Davos this week at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting.

��ɫֱ�� researchers are using AI to advance scientific discovery and improve health-care delivery, exploring how to mitigate potential harms and finding new ways to ensure the technology aligns with human values.

“The advancement of AI is moving quickly, and the year ahead holds a lot of promise but also a lot of unanswered questions,” says Monique Crichlow, executive director of the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society (SRI). “Researchers at SRI and across the university are tackling how to build and regulate AI systems for safer outcomes, as well as the social impacts of these powerful technologies.”

“From health-care delivery to accessible financial and legal services, AI has the potential to benefit society in many ways and tackle inequality around the world. But we have real work to do in 2024 to ensure that happens safely.”

As AI continues to reshape industries and challenge many aspects of society, here are four emerging themes ��ɫֱ�� researchers are keeping their eyes on in 2024:

1. AI regulation is on its way

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris applauds as U.S. President Joe Biden signs an executive order on the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of artificial intelligence on Oct. 30, 2023 (photo by Brendan Simialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

As a technology with a wide range of potential applications, AI has the potential to impact all aspects of society – and regulators around the world are scrambling to catch up.

Set to pass later this year, the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) is the Canadian government’s first attempt to comprehensively regulate AI. Similar attempts by other governments include the European Union’s AI Act and the Algorithmic Accountability Act in the United States.

But there is still much to be done.

In the coming year, legislators and policymakers in Canada will tackle many questions, including what counts as fair use when it comes to training data and what privacy means in the 21st century. Is it illegal for companies to train AI systems on copyrighted data, as a recent lawsuit from the New York Times alleges? Who owns the rights to AI-generated artworks? Will Canada’s new privacy bill sufficiently protect citizens’ biometric data?

On top of this, AI’s entry into other sectors and industries will increasingly affect and transform how we regulate other products and services. As Gillian Hadfield, a professor in the Faculty of Law and the Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society, Policy Researcher Jamie Sandhu and Faculty of Law doctorial candidate Noam Kolt explore in a recent policy brief for CIFAR (formerly the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research), a focus on regulating AI through its harms and risks alone “obscures the bigger picture” of how these systems will transform other industries and society as a whole. For example: are current car safety regulations adequate to account for self-driving vehicles powered by AI?

2. The use of generative AI will continue to stir up controversy

Microsoft Bing Image Creator is displayed on a smartphone (photo by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto/Getty Images)

From AI-generated text and pictures to videos and music, use of generative AI has exploded over the past year – and so have questions surrounding issues such as academic integrity, misinformation and the displacement of creative workers.

In the classroom, teachers are seeking to understand how education is evolving in the age of machine learning. Instructors will need to find new ways to embrace these tools – or perhaps opt to reject them altogether – and students will continue to discover new ways to learn alongside these systems.

At the same time, AI systems created more than 15 billion images last year by some counts – more than the entire 150-year history of photography. Online content will increasingly lack human authorship, and some researchers have proposed that by 2026 as much as 90 per cent of internet text could be generated by AI. Risks around disinformation will increase, and new methods to label content as trustworthy will be essential.

Many workers – including writers, translators, illustrators and designers – are worried about job losses. But a tidal wave of machine-generated text could also have negative impacts on AI development. In a recent study, Nicolas Papernot, an assistant professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and an SRI faculty affiliate, and his co-authors found training AI on machine-generated text led to the system becoming less reliable and subject to “model collapse.”

3. Public perception and trust of AI is shifting

A person walks past a temporary AI stall in Davos, Switzerland (photo by Andy Barton/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images)

Can we trust AI? Is our data secure?

Emerging research on public trust of AI is shedding light on changing preferences, desires and viewpoints. Peter Loewen – the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, SRI’s associate director and the director of the Munk School’s Policy, Elections & Representation Lab (PEARL) – is developing an index measuring public perceptions of and attitudes towards AI technologies.

Loewen’s team conducted a representative survey of more than 23,000 people across 21 countries, examining attitudes towards regulation, AI development, perceived personal and societal economic impacts, specific emerging technologies such as ChatGPT and the use of AI by government. They plan to release their results soon.

Meanwhile, 2024 is being called “the biggest election year in history,” with more than 50 countries headed to the polls, and experts expect interference and misinformation to hit an all-time high thanks to AI. How will citizens know which information, candidates, and policies to trust?

In response, some researchers are investigating the foundations of trust itself. Beth Coleman, an associate professor at ��ɫֱ�� Mississauga’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology and the Faculty of Information who is an SRI research lead, is leading an interdisciplinary working group on the role of trust in interactions between humans and AI systems, examining how trust is conceptualized, earned and maintained in our interactions with the pivotal technology of our time.

4. AI will increasingly transform labour, markets and industries

A protester in London holds a placard during a rally in Leicester Square (photo by Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Kristina McElheran, an assistant professor in the Rotman School of Management and an SRI researcher, and her collaborators may have recently found a gap between AI buzz in the workplace and businesses who are actually using it – but there remains a real possibility that labour, markets and industries will undergo massive transformation.

��ɫֱ�� researchers who have published books on how AI will transform industry include: Rotman faculty members Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb, whose Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence argues that “old ways of doing things will be upended” as AI predictions improve; and the Faculty of Law’s Benjamin Alarie and Abdi Aidid, who propose in The Legal Singularity: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Law Radically Better that AI will improve legal services by increasing ease of access and fairness for individuals.

In 2024, institutions – public and private – will be creating more guidelines and rules around how AI systems can or cannot be used in their operations. Disruptors will be challenging the hierarchy of the current marketplace.

The coming year promises to be transformative for AI as it continues to find new applications across society. Experts and citizens must stay alert to the changes AI will bring and continue to advocate that ethical and responsible practices guide the development of this powerful technology.

Meet four future lawyers and leaders from ��ɫֱ��'s Faculty of Law

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 16:16:18 +0000

Meet four future lawyers and leaders from ��ɫֱ��'s Faculty of Law

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 06/20/2023 - 12:16

Cutline

Clockwise from top left: Faculty of Law grads Meaza Damte, Tomas Jirousek, Nik Khakhar and Sabrina Macklai (all photos by Nina Haikara)

Nina Haikara

Convocation 2023

Graduates of the juris doctor (JD) program at the ��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Law recently crossed the stage at Convocation Hall.

In total, 231 new JDs comprise the latest cohort of future lawyers and leaders – and join the ranks of an accomplished global network of ��ɫֱ�� Law alumni.

��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Law asked four JDs from this year’s graduating class to reflect on their time at law school and what they learned.

Meaza Damte (JD 2023)

Class of 2023 Valedictorian
��ɫֱ�� Student Leadership Award
John Willis Award for Leadership and Gina Caldarelli Memorial Prize for Spirit

What’s next?
Articling at McCarthy Tétrault LLP

Looking back, I chose to study law because I understood the power that the law holds in our society. Becoming a lawyer was the logical next step to harness that power and use it to uplift marginalized communities and vulnerable populations.

It’s surprising just how rigid the law can be in the face of systemic injustice. Crafting creative legal arguments can be difficult within the confines of precedent. The ever-present, and frankly flawed, ‘reasonable person’ standard was created by straight white men with immense privilege. The rigidity built into our legal system is intentional.

When I started law school, I viewed the law as a tool to create social change. Three years later, my perspective on the law has shifted: I still believe the law can be a tool for social change, but it needs to be wielded in creative and sometimes disruptive ways. The adversarial common law system is not the only way forward.

Long-term, I want to find a way to combine my passion for advocacy with my love for community and kinship. Becoming a lawyer is a great privilege – and I am hopeful that I can use that privilege to make positive change in the lives of as many people as possible.

Tomas Jirousek (JD 2023)

��ɫֱ�� Student Leadership Award
Senior editor, Indigenous Law Journal
Co-president, Indigenous Law Students’ Association (ILSA)
��ɫֱ�� Varsity Blues Rowing

What’s next?
Clerkship, Court of Appeal for Ontario

I was inspired to study law by my grandparents. They weren’t lawyers, but they never stopped helping people. My maternal grandma worked as a nurse at the Indian Hospital in our community, the Kainai First Nation.

My paternal grandfather was a school principal at a remote First Nations community a few hours north of Whitehorse. My paternal grandpa isn’t an Indigenous person, instead coming to Canada with his family from the Czech Republic, but that never stopped him from dedicating his career to supporting Indigenous youth in the Yukon.

While I’m the first person in my family to go to law school, I’m most definitely not the first to dedicate myself towards supporting Indigenous communities. For me, the law is just a platform to advance the same principles of equity and kindness that my grandparents worked towards.

I want to continue using the law to help marginalized communities. Law school has shown me that you can promote equity through an incredible number of avenues. Whether through volunteering at community legal clinics, or working at an Indigenous law firm, I feel being a small part of Indigenous communities’ ultimate success is the best goal I could aspire to.

Nik Khakhar (JD 2023)

Caseworker, Innocence Canada
Blog editor, Criminal Law Students' Association (CLSA)
Founder and co-organizer of the inaugural ��ɫֱ�� Faculty of Law Students’ Research Symposium

What’s next?
Articling at Public Prosecution Service of Canada (PPSC)

I am constantly inspired by the amount of interdisciplinary learning that comes with legal studies and practice. In law school, you have the benefit of learning from diverse peers and professors who all come in with different experiences and understandings of justice. In legal practice, interdisciplinary collaborations are not only encouraged but necessary.

You learn so much every day in this profession, and the learning experiences teach you humility, compassion, and open-mindedness – all of which are necessary for good character.

As I get more practical experience at the federal Crown, I hope to synthesize my passion for academia with my enthusiasm in legal practice through seeking opportunities to participate in criminal law policy reform, and hopefully, will someday have the privilege of teaching our next generation of law students as an adjunct professor.

Sabrina Macklai (JD/Master of Information 2023)

Editor-in-Chief (2020-2022), Ultra Vires
Co-founder & co-president of the Legal Innovation & Technology Group (LIT)

What’s next?
Clerkship, Federal Court of Canada

I chose to study law out of a desire to understand the tension underlying intellectual property (IP) law regimes. In particular, I came to law school hoping to determine if a balance could be struck between protecting creators’ rights and promoting innovation.

My interest in this area stems from my undergraduate and graduate training. I was introduced to IP law while working as a student in an analytical chemistry lab at McMaster University. It was there that I learned why patents were an important asset for inventors. Later, during my master’s at ��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Information, I studied the history of IP and the way it has been used to hinder access to information. Struck by these conflicting views, I entered law school eager to find answers.

This August, I will be heading to Ottawa to clerk for Justice Russel W. Zinn at the Federal Court of Canada. I am excited to get a behind-the-scenes look at how judges make decisions and hopefully participate in some exciting patent trials!

Long-term, I wish to practise intellectual property law and hope to eventually contribute to the scholarship in this area.

Michael Walsh, a rare book collector who helped ��ɫֱ�� build a major philosophy collection, receives honorary degree

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 20:19:03 +0000

Michael Walsh, a rare book collector who helped ��ɫֱ�� build a major philosophy collection, receives honorary degree Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 06/02/2023 - 16:19

Cutline

(photo by Lisa Sakulensky)

Scott Anderson

Topic

Convocation 2023

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Honorary Degree

Michael Walsh enjoyed a highly successful career as an investment banker – but he never left schooling in philosophy behind, channeling his interest in the subject into building a rare book collection of some of the most important works of philosophy in the Western canon.

In 1999, after carefully assembling several thousand volumes, he donated them to the ��ɫֱ��’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library – in the hope that scholars around the world would be able to use them to develop new philosophical insights.

Today, for his outstanding service to ��ɫֱ�� through his commitment to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and his gift of an extraordinary resource – the Walsh Philosophy Collection – F. Michael Walsh will receive a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa from the university.

A financial executive for most of his career, Walsh, earned both a bachelor of arts and a master’s degree in philosophy the University of Guelph. He earned an MBA from York University in 1975, graduating with a specialization in economics and public administration.

He thought he’d become a professor, but a chance meeting changed that. “I visited a broker for another purpose, and by the end of the day I had a job, although I hadn’t taken any specialized courses in finance or investments,” he recalled. “To be honest, I was very surprised and somewhat worried.”

(photo by Lisa Sakulensky)

Walsh spent more than two decades in the fast-paced world of investments, ultimately serving as senior vice-president, secretary and director of First Marathon Securities. But he maintained an interest in philosophy, and completed a PhD in the subject at the University of Guelph in 1992.

Along with his passion for philosophy came a love of books – not just for reading but as physical objects. When he landed a job in the investment business, he decided to start a collection. “I became especially interested in books of philosophy and ideas,” he told ��ɫֱ�� Magazine in 2012.

In that interview, he recalled his first big purchase – a first edition of Scottish philosopher David Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). He paid $11,500, handing over a cheque to the antiquarian bookseller who had contacted him. “This was 20 times more than I had previously spent on an ‘expensive’ book – a very big leap,” he said. “That was when I knew there was no turning back as a collector. I was hooked!”

With volumes covering western philosophical thought from before 1500 through to the 20th century, the F. Michael Walsh Collection is a valuable resource for philosophers, theologians, historians and students at ��ɫֱ�� and in the broader community. The collection helps the university attract the world’s best philosophy students and researchers, and has raised ��ɫֱ��’s profile as the home of one of the leading rare book libraries in the world.

To ensure that the library can augment the collection with important works as they become available, Walsh and his wife Virginia, who also studied philosophy, created the Walsh Philosophy Endowment. “Several years ago, we decided that we wanted the collection to have a ‘life’ beyond that which was allotted to me,” Walsh told The Halcyon, the Fisher Library’s newsletter. “I look forward to working with the Fisher’s librarians, until my demise, to find many more fine acquisitions.”

Walsh’s involvement with the library extends beyond the collection and endowment. He served for more than a decade as the chair of the Friends of the Fisher Library Steering Committee, and still advises on acquisitions of unique rare books.

He has also served as a corporate director for several companies and an advisor for the Ontario Securities Commission. Among the honours he has received are the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal and ��ɫֱ��’s Arbor Award.

In his convocation address today to students graduating from the Faculty of Information and the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, Walsh will speak about the lifelong benefits of their ��ɫֱ�� experience. “Your education here at Toronto has hopefully taught you some things of incredible value: how to best make use of your natural abilities; how to think and communicate; how to adapt; and it has helped you to build your character. These are the things that will be determine your success, no matter what you do: either the career you now dream of, or like me, something totally unanticipated.”

Javed Mostafa named dean of ��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Information

lanthierj — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 17:17:24 +0000

Javed Mostafa named dean of ��ɫֱ��’s Faculty of Information

lanthierj Fri, 06/02/2023 - 13:17

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Cheryl Regehr