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Quebec’s Artificial Intelligence Institute, Mila, and an AI company building in Montreal’s Mile-Ex neighbourhood were vandalized Tuesday night, police say.
Windows at the research institute that studies AI deep learning and nearby software company ServiceNow were smashed. Graffiti reading “Burn the Data Centers” was also painted on the side of one of the buildings.
A spokesperson for the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM), Manuel Couture, said officers on patrol discovered the vandalized buildings around 11:45 p.m. on Tuesday.
He says they then arrested a 25-year-old woman near the scene and brought her in for questioning. According to Couture, police suspect a group of about 10 individuals is responsible for the acts of vandalism.
The phrase ‘Burn the Data Centers’ was spray-painted on the Mila building. (Rowan Kennedy/CBC)
The vandalism comes in the midst of increased levels of concern about the rapid pace of AI development across the world.
Last week, Jacob Coxon, a researcher at the AI company Anthropic, publicly announced his resignation in a series of posts on X, and warned that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”
The posts, which have been seen by hundreds of millions of people, ignited worldwide debate about the speed at which the technology is being developed.
Following Coxon’s posts, Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, published a blog post that argues for slowing down AI development in the name of public safety.
A number of Amodei’s direct competitors — including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind chief Demis Hassabis and Elon Musk — posted statements in support of his position.
AI consultant Michael Cant says he was dismayed to see the vandalism when he passed by the building on St-Urbain Street Wednesday morning.
“It’s really tragic because Mila is the one organization quite clearly in Canada, if not in the world, that’s most advocating for AI safety,” said Cant, who added that he believes fears and concerns about AI are legitimate.
WATCH | Mila headquarters vandalized in Montreal:
Research centre, AI company vandalized ahead of Montreal artificial intelligence summit
At least a dozen windows of the Mile-Ex building that houses Quebec’s AI research institute and nearby software company were smashed. Graffiti was also painted on the side of one of the buildings. It comes as All In, an AI and tech summit, gets underway at Palais des congrès.AI summit kicks off in Montreal
All In, one of Canada’s largest AI and tech summits, gets underway on Wednesday in Montreal.
Mila’s founder, the prominent computer scientist and AI researcher Yoshua Bengio, is set to speak at the event on Thursday. ServiceNow’s vice-president of AI research, Valérie Bécaert, is also a speaker.
The summit, which is sold out, is expected to bring together over 6,500 AI experts and industry stakeholders over two days at the Palais des congrès in the city’s downtown.
The conference will also serve as an opportunity for Mila to formalize a new partnership.
The non-profit is joining forces with the German Research Centre for Articial Intelligence (DFKI) to share research into agentic AI, AI safety and trustworthy systems, with the ultimate goal of accelerating technology transfer into the Canadian and German economies.
Leaders from the two research centres will sign a memorandum of understanding at the All In summit today. Evan Solomon, Canada’s minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, and his German counterpart, Karsten Wildberger, will be in attendance.
Solomon and Bengio denounced the acts of vandalism during a press conference at the All In summit today.
When asked for his reaction to the incident, Bengio said, in French, that “violence is not a response to these risks and worries … which I can understand.”