The Hinton Lectures™ 2026

The Hinton Lectures are ticketed. Each night requires its own ticket. Online registration only; no tickets will be sold at the door.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9

All times Eastern (Toronto).

The Hinton Lectures™ 2026 Night 1: Alignment

AI alignment: What’s working and what’s not

Recorded

Examining what recent AI behaviour reveals about the challenges of alignment, and how researchers are working to address them.

Watch Night 1

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Programme

Lecture by Paul Christiano, introduced by Professor Geoffrey Hinton.A panel discussion moderated by Sínead Bovell, featuring:

• Paul Christiano
• Colin Raffel, Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, Faculty Researcher at Hugging Face, and Canada CIFAR AI Chair
• Alexey Rubtsov, Senior Research Associate (Global Risk Institute)

Recorded at J.W.H. Bassett Theatre · Monday, November 9

Professor Geoffrey HintonPaul ChristianoSínead Bovell

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10

All times Eastern (Toronto).

The Hinton Lectures™ 2026 Night 2: Oversight

Staying in control of self-improving AI

Recorded

Exploring how AI could accelerate its own development, what that means for human oversight and whether our ability to maintain control can keep pace.

Watch Night 2

Trouble playing? Watch on YouTube →

Programme

Lecture by Paul Christiano.A panel discussion moderated by Sínead Bovell, featuring:

• Paul Christiano
• Jodie Wallis, Global Chief AI Officer (Manulife)
• Jesslyn Dymond, Director, Responsible Data & AI Enablement (TELUS)

Recorded at J.W.H. Bassett Theatre · Tuesday, November 10

Professor Geoffrey HintonPaul ChristianoSínead Bovell

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11

All times Eastern (Toronto).

The Hinton Lectures™ 2026 Night 3: Coordination

Governing transformative AI

Watch live tonight →Open to all

Examining how scientific oversight, shared safety standards and international cooperation could help manage the risks of transformative AI.

Evening Schedule

5:30 p.m.

Doors Open

6:00 p.m.

Final lecture by Paul Christiano.Following the lecture, Professor Geoffrey Hinton joins Sínead Bovell for a fireside conversation, followed by a brief audience Q&A to conclude the lecture series.

7:30–8:30 p.m.

Networking Reception

What to Expect +–

As AI capabilities advance beyond the reach of any single organization or country, how can we coordinate an effective response? The final lecture examines the role of independent scientific evaluations, external oversight, shared safety standards and international cooperation in managing transformative AI. Paul Christiano will consider what meaningful coordination could look like and how institutions might ensure that safeguards keep pace with technological progress.

J.W.H. Bassett Theatre · How to get there →

Professor Geoffrey HintonPaul ChristianoSínead Bovell

SPEAKERS

HOST

Professor Geoffrey Hinton

Nobel laureate in Physics, 2024

Considered the "Godfather of AI," Geoffrey Hinton is a distinguished British-Canadian computer scientist and cognitive psychologist celebrated for his groundbreaking work in artificial neural networks. He has held pivotal roles at Google and the University of Toronto, with over 800,000 citations and collaborations with the most influential minds in AI. In 2024, Professor Hinton was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics. His career continues to be a relentless pursuit of innovation and excellence in the field. Professor Hinton is a co-founder of the AI Safety Foundation (host of The Hinton Lectures), where he also serves on the Nominating Committee for the annual lecture series alongside Beth Barnes, Founder & CEO of METR; Roger Grosse, Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society; and, Shane Legg, co-founder and Chief AGI Scientist at Google DeepMind.

LECTURER

Paul Christiano

Executive Director and Founder, Alignment Research Center

Paul Christiano is a researcher in AI alignment who has led teams across industry, government and civil society. He is the founder and executive director of the Alignment Research Center, where he leads research on white-box analysis of neural networks. He was previously the technical director of the US AI Safety Institute, focused on building technical capacity for AI evaluation within the U.S. government. Before that he was an early researcher at OpenAI, where he developed reinforcement learning from human feedback and led a team scaling it up to production environments. He has been writing and speaking about alignment for more than a decade and received his PhD from UC Berkeley. On September 9, 2026 Paul also joined the OpenAI Foundation Board and the Safety and Security Committee (SSC) of the OpenAI Foundation.

MODERATOR

Sínead Bovell

Strategic Foresight Advisor and Founder, WAYE

Sínead Bovell is a futurist and strategic foresight advisor whose work examines how emerging technologies reshape the systems and institutions that underpin society. She advises senior leaders across business, government and multilateral institutions on making anticipatory decisions that strengthen institutional and societal resilience. Through her writing and public talks, podcast I’ve Got Questions, and technology education initiative WAYE, she works to broaden public understanding of technological change and its implications for society. Sínead is a 14-time speaker at the United Nations and has delivered keynotes and formal addresses to presidents, royalty, NATO and Fortune 500 leaders on the societal and strategic implications of emerging technologies.

NOMINATING COMMITTEE

The nominating committee brings together world-renowned leaders at the forefront of AI research and safety.

This distinguished group of Nobel laureates, pioneering researchers and executives are shaping the future of artificial intelligence through their groundbreaking work at leading institutions and organizations. Their collective expertise in AI development, safety research and technology governance ensures that each year's lecture series features speakers who represent the most important and impactful voices in the field.

Beth Barnes

Founder & CEO

METR

Roger Grosse

Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society

Geoffrey Hinton

2024 Nobel laureate in Physics

Shane Legg

Co-Founder & Chief AGI Scientist

Google DeepMind

2025

The Hinton Lectures™ 2025

Lecturer: Owain Evans, Ph.D.
Founder and Director of Truthful AI

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NOVEMBER 10, 11 & 12 · 5:45–7:15 P.M. EST · JOHN W. H. BASSETT THEATRE, TORONTO

Owain Evans is a leading machine learning researcher specializing in AI alignment and AGI risk. His current work focuses on emergent misalignment, deception, and situational awareness in advanced AI systems.

He is the founder of Truthful AI, a research non-profit based in Berkeley, and an affiliate of the Center for Human-Compatible AI at UC Berkeley. Previously, he conducted alignment research at the University of Oxford and earned his PhD at MIT.

His work has been featured in the Economist, BBC News, and the Financial Times. He has served as an advisor to nonprofits and foundations in the AI Safety space. A frequent speaker at major academic and industry events, he has presented at over 20 conferences and is recognized for his expertise and leadership in the field of AI safety.

In 2026, Owain was named to TIME's list of the 100 most influential people in AI.

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Night 1

AI Agents: Risks and Opportunities

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Night 2

AIs Behaving Badly

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Night 3

Reading the Thoughts of AIs / Language Models

The Hinton Lectures™ 2024

2024

Jacob Steinhardt, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley & Founder of Transluce

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Night 1

Emerging Challenges in AI: Breakthroughs and Risks for the Next Decade

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Night 2

AI in Society: Markets, Misuse, Managers, and Memes

OUR MISSION

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