Geoffrey Hinton tops Toronto Life's list of most influential people
(photo by Polina Teif)
Published: November 21, 2023
Geoffrey Hinton, a University Professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Toronto and the “godfather of AI”, has been ranked the most influential of 2023 by Toronto Life magazine.
After Hinton announced he was leaving his job at Google to warn the world about the existential threat of AI earlier this year, the magazine reports he received more than 1,000 interview requests about the future of the tech he helped create.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invited Hinton to dinner to discuss what Canada should do about AI and he fielded calls from the White House and 10 Downing Street.
“When he speaks, everyone pays attention,” writes Toronto Life, which also published an in-depth profile of Hinton.
Hinton was one of more than 15 U of T alumni, faculty and community members that made the magazine’s annual list of movers and shakers.
Others include: Tiff Macklem, governor of the Bank of Canada and former dean of the Rotman School of Management; Ilya Sutskever, an alumnus and co-founder of OpenAI; Gregg Lintern, retiring Toronto chief planner and U of T alumnus; Anita Anand, Treasury Board president and a professor in the Faculty of Law (on leave); James Maskalyk, an emergency doctor at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health, and a faculty member in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine; Raquel Urtasun, CEO of self-driving truck startup Waabi and a professor of computer science; Leigh Chapman, Canada’s chief nursing officer and U of T alumna; Sam Ibrahim, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who is a major supporter of U of T Scarborough; and Carlo Fidani, a businessman, philanthropist and U of T honorary degree-holder who has supported the Mississauga Academy of Medicine at U of T Mississauga and whose Orlando Corporation has made a major investment in the Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health (SAMIH).
Members of the U of T community were also featured in the magazine’s list of rising stars, published in the same issue.
Read the full list in Toronto Life
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