Podcasts about canadian ai

Hey folks, Alex here

DeepSeek Breakthrough: The Democratization of AI and Its Implications Welcome back to Project Synapse! In this episode, we discuss the latest developments in AI, focusing on DeepSeek's open-source reasoning model. Join us as financial executive John Pinard and open-source guru Marcel Gagné delve into AI's role in defense, the U.S. Department of Defense's use of AI for identifying threats, and the Canadian government's new data center initiative. We also explore the democratization of AI, as DeepSeek makes advanced AI affordable and accessible, challenging major players in the industry. Don't miss this insightful discussion about AI's future and its global impact! 00:00 Welcome Back to Project Synapse 00:33 Introducing the Guests 01:09 Weekly AI News Highlights 01:23 AI in Defense: Ethical Concerns 02:42 Canadian AI and Economic Challenges 08:45 Open Source AI and Global Competition 13:31 Security and Safety in AI Development 19:38 Transparency and Open Source Models 32:07 AI in Corporate Settings: Key Considerations 32:25 Cybersecurity: Doing What You Can 32:56 Technology for Business: Practical Applications 33:33 AI Specialization vs. Monolithic Models 34:49 Quantum Computing: A Case Study 35:39 The Importance of Training in AI 36:58 Deploying AI Tools in Organizations 38:19 DeepSeek: A New AI Contender 40:42 Reinforcement Learning and AI Development 45:11 Open Source AI: Democratizing Technology 49:41 Global AI Competition: US vs. China 53:23 The Future of AI: Open Source and Accessibility 01:00:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Tesla is forming a teleoperations team to enhance its autonomous vehicle technology, while judicial decisions impact Elon Musk's compensation, and there are notable investments in EV infrastructure and clean energy initiatives. Open AI's collaboration with Anduril Industries aims to integrate AI into defense systems, enhancing operational efficiency and situational awareness with human oversight. Nvidia's acquisition of Mellanox Technologies has strengthened its position in the AI and high-performance computing markets, driving revenue growth and market dominance. Cohere, a Canadian AI startup, is developing customized AI models for enterprise users to enhance relevance and effectiveness while being more capital-efficient. TSMC is in advanced talks with Nvidia to manufacture Blackwell AI chips at its new Arizona facility, enhancing the semiconductor supply chain and local economic growth. The expansion of data centers, driven by cloud computing and AI, is causing social and environmental concerns in communities like Fairfax County, Virginia, prompting calls for better regulation and sustainable practices. The rise of commercial spyware has increased cyber threats, with iVerify's findings on Pegasus spyware infections highlighting the need for robust cybersecurity measures.

Fujitsu Ltd. said Tuesday that it has signed a strategic partnership with Cohere Inc., a Canadian artificial intelligence startup, to develop an advanced Japanese language model, based on Cohere's large language model, or LLM, for corporate clients.

The Briefs - Bank of Canada lowers rates; Canada jobs fall flat; Canadian AI firm gets big investment; TD struggles with money laundering problems; NDP wants a cap on some grocery prices; CRTC to impose 5% levy on digital streamers Auto theft continues to hit new records Rates and housing, rates and debt payments Our chilly relationship with China

Apple buys a Canadian artificial intelligence startup, a new chip could promises to decrease costs and reduce the environmental footprint of AI, Citrix angers its partners and clients as rumours of new pricing and product bundling hit the street and are tech layoffs the “new normal?” All this and more on the “how to lose friends and influence people” edition of Hashtag Trending. I'm your host, Jim Love, CIO of IT World Canada and TechNewsDay in the US.

Season 6 – Episode 3 Welcome to PressPlay Lifestyle AI Inspired, your go-to podcast for the freshest insights in ChatGPT, AI, and OpenAI. I'm your host, Jackie Schwabe, and I'm here to help you stay ahead of the curve as you navigate the exciting world of AI in your work and life. Let's dive into today's updates! Open AI News OpenAI has announced this week new partnerships with Le Monde and Prisa Media to integrate French and Spanish news content into ChatGPT, aiming to support journalism and offer ChatGPT users access to high-quality news. This collaboration will allow users to engage with summarized news content directly in ChatGPT, with links to full articles on the publishers' websites, enhancing the availability of reliable information and supporting the news industry's role in providing authoritative content. For more detailed information on these updates, you can visit OpenAI's official blog posts on their website. AI News Apple has acquired DarwinAI, a Canadian AI startup known for its vision-based technology that enhances manufacturing component efficiency. This move, reported by Bloomberg, sees members of DarwinAI's team joining Apple's machine learning groups. DarwinAI's expertise in making AI models more compact and efficient aligns with Apple's plans to introduce on-device generative AI features, potentially in iOS 18, as Apple seeks to catch up with competitors in GenAI-powered functionalities. For more details, visit TechCrunch's full article. Oracle has introduced new generative AI capabilities into its Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, focusing on enhancing workflows across various domains like finance and supply chain. This upgrade aims to allow users and partners to embed more AI functionalities seamlessly, ensuring data privacy and customizability through Oracle's cloud infrastructure. This development signifies a major leap in how businesses and individuals interact with computers, offering a range of applications previously unimaginable with earlier AI models. For more details, you can read the full article on PYMNTS. A Las Vegas-based company, Luxury Realty Group, has introduced an AI real estate agent designed to assist families in finding homes in the area. This innovative approach aims to enhance the home-buying process by leveraging AI to offer personalized assistance to both realtors and potential buyers. For more information, you can read the full article on Yahoo News. Texas is actively preparing its higher education system for the AI revolution. The University of Texas at San Antonio is leading the charge by planning to open a new college dedicated to AI, cybersecurity, computing, and data science by fall 2025, aiming to equip students with the necessary skills for a workforce increasingly reliant on AI competencies. This initiative is part of a broader movement within the state's educational institutions to integrate AI into their curriculums and ensure faculty are up to speed with the technology. For more on this innovative approach, read the full story at The 74. The UAE is poised to invest in OpenAI's initiative to develop proprietary chips, a strategic move that could significantly bolster the AI sector. This investment underscores the UAE's commitment to advancing AI technology and its potential impacts on the global stage. For more details, check the full article on AI News. Anthropic has unveiled Claude 3 Haiku, claiming it to be the fastest AI model in its category. This development represents a significant leap forward in the efficiency and speed of AI models, highlighting Anthropic's focus on pushing the boundaries of AI technology. For further details, visit AI News. The EU's newly approved AI Act has sparked a broad spectrum of responses, stirring a debate about its impact on innovation and regulatory adherence within the AI industry. This legislation may influence how AI technologies are developed and implemented, not just in Europe but globally, including in the US, as international companies navigate compliance with these regulations while striving to maintain a competitive edge in technological advancements. For a deeper understanding, you can read the full discussion on AI News. And that wraps up today's episode of PressPlay Lifestyle AI Inspired. Remember, AI is not just about technology; it's about unlocking new possibilities in how we work, create, and interact with the world around us. Whether you're integrating ChatGPT into your daily tasks, keeping an eye on AI breakthroughs, or leveraging OpenAI's latest offerings, staying informed is key. For more insights and free tools to empower your AI journey, visit us at https://FoundersAIEnablement.com Until next time, keep pressing play on your AI-inspired life! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pressplayinspired/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pressplayinspired/support

In this episode of Courtside Financial, host Obi dives into Apple Inc.'s recent acquisition of Canadian AI startup DarwinAI. Explore the implications of this move on Apple's entry into generative AI technology and its potential impact on future products and services. Learn about DarwinAI's innovative AI systems and how they align with Apple's strategy of bringing AI capabilities directly onto its devices. Plus, gain insights into the competitive landscape of AI technology and Apple's position therein. Don't miss out on this insightful discussion! Join our Discord community for more discussions: https://discord.gg/GSbp4wR Copyright Disclaimer: Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/courtsidefinancial/support

In this week's episode, we're thrilled to host Alex McIsaac of Northside Ventures. With a diverse background in venture capital, cleantech, and global investing, Alex shares invaluable insights from his tenure as a Partner at Global Founders Capital. We explore why Alex believes it's the right time to launch Northside Ventures and the specific pre-seed market gaps he aims to address.We also delve into the prospects for Canadian AI startups, discussing strategies for outperforming established players and securing Canada's victory in the tech arena.About Alex McIsaac:Alex McIsaac is the Founder and General Partner of Northside Ventures. He has 12 years of experience as both an operator and early-stage investor. Alex led the Canadian practice as a Partner at Global Founders Capital, an international multi-stage venture fund with $3B+ AUM and 15+ offices globally. As a Principal at BDC Capital, the largest venture investor in Canada with $6B+ AUM, Alex helped manage the Seed Fund and Women in Tech fund.Alex spent over six years as a co-founding employee at NRStor, an energy storage-focused cleantech start-up founded in 2012. Blackstone Energy acquired its commercial business in 2018.Alex holds a BScH from Queen's University and an HBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business.In this episode, we discuss:(01:03) McIsaac's VC journey started with a biology background, shifting to business and early-stage cleantech at Northwater Capital(02:01) The transition to building at NRStor, focused on energy storage technology(04:42) International investing and founder importance at BDC and Global Founders Capital(08:48) The founders' role in company success and adapting to market shifts at GFC.(10:27) Founders' adaptability to profitability during market changes(12:19) Why Alex launched Northside Ventures, focusing on early-stage, high-velocity companies without follow-on checks(17:42) Addressing Canadian pre-seed investment gaps(20:32) His interest in sectors like B2B SaaS, AI, FinTech, and cleantech for long-term growth(23:30) Adding value through investor and customer introductions, and key decision advising(26:18) Emphasis on one-to-one founder relationships over formal board seats for flexibility.(27:14) Targeted diverse LPs as a fundraising strategy(31:02) Using networking and events for LP network building(34:59) The importance of a good CRM as a solo GP(37:18) Early success with investments like Terminal, emphasizing founder-market fit(40:16) Optimism about Canadian AI startups(42:41) AI startups with distinct distribution strategies and customer needs addressing(45:36) Goals to make Northside a leading VC firm, contributing to the Canadian tech ecosystemFast Favorites:*

(0:00) Intro.(1:28) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.(2:14) Start of interview.(3:09) Nick's "origin story." (6:36) On his first startup IMix.com (focused on music streaming)(7:55) His pivot as an equity analyst at Sanford Bernstein.(8:32)  His focus on investing in and advising internet companies.(9:56) His time at Google (2010-2022), first in Canada then as Chief Evangelist.(13:21) His time at Chief Growth and Strategy Officer at Coveo, a Canadian AI company (2022-2023).(14:44)  Joining the boards of the Toronto Stock Exchange, iA Financial Group, McEwen Mining,  and Alida and advising boards on AI. Teaching at the Rotman School of Management, Northwestern and the Canadian Institute of Directors (ICD).(16:55)  Defining AI. The types of AI: 1) Computational AI, 2) Sensors AI, and 3) Generative AI.(21:22)  The future of Generative AI: Big Tech or startups? (24:42)  On whether the investment mania in AI is justified. "This technology wave is likely to be much more significant than the internet." "It's the most important technology wave that I have ever seen in my career."(26:19)  How corporate directors should think about opportunities and risks of AI. "The most important thing in governance for a board, in my view for AI, is making sure there is movement." Other risks: 1) Use of confidential information, 2) Creating a private version of AI, 3) Hallucinations (fake information by AI), 4) Issues of bias. Corporate training.(35:07)  On where AI fits in board committees, and on surge of AI experts on boardrooms. *recommendation by Nick: Coursera class on prompt engineering (Vanderbilt University).(39:51) On AI regulation by the US (EO by President Biden), EU, Canada and others.(46:03)  The US-China race on AI - geopolitical implications. *reference to Marc Andreessen's article Why AI Will Save the World.(50:03) On OpenAI's board fiasco and some of the unusual governance structures of leading AI companies.(54:45) Books that have greatly influenced his life: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)1984 by George Orwell (1949)(55:50) His mentors: #1 his mother, #2 McKinsey & Co.(56:33)  Quotes that he thinks of often or lives her life by: "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" by Wayne Gretzky.(57:30) An unusual habit or absurd thing that he loves: Keeping track and data of his healthcare. He recommends the book "Outlive" by Peter Attia. Two tests that he recommends: Cleerly heart scan using AI and Galleri test for cancer detection. Tracks VO2 Max.(1:00:04) The living person he most admires: Anders Tegnell (Sweden's state epidemiologist).(1:02:18) Recommendation for corporate directors on where to get started on getting educated on AI.Nicolas Darveau-Garveau is an AI and digital transformation expert. He was Google's Chief Evangelist and worked as Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at Coveo, a leading AI company. He currently serves on the boards of the Toronto Stock Exchange, iA Financial Group, McEwen Mining, and Alida. You can follow Evan on social media at:Twitter: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__You can join as a Patron of the Boardroom Governance Podcast at:Patreon: patreon.com/BoardroomGovernancePod__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Amber and Michael discuss the following topics with their guests: new heat pump standards for improved cold-weather performance; Canadian AI regulation needs; Amber's gift guide for a smarter home; and are we reaching the end of online search.Links to this week's stories and discussion:[08:25] Lorenzo Rossi: terravisenergy.com[16:13] App-tastic[23:54] Robert Piasentin[34:45] Amber's Smart Home Gift Guide[42:04] Socially SpeakingYou can also find both AmberMac and Michael B on X(Twitter).

Canadian AI researcher wins Herzberg medal, cautions world about his work; Pro football player lifespan depends on the position they play; Killer whale blubber is telling a sad story about pollution; Smart glasses help blind people see with sound; The most powerful solar storm ever struck before it could do much damage.

In an exciting new episode of the CanadianSME Small Business podcast, we explore the future of generative AI with Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce. This episode uncovers the transformative potential of generative AI, its role in shaping the future of work, the ethical considerations, and much more. We also delve into the current landscape of AI in Canada, highlighting the rise in investments and the associated challenges.Key Highlights:Generative AI Unleashed: Vala Afshar gives an enlightening overview of generative AI, its potential to bring industry-wide transformations, and shares real-world examples of its significant impact.AI Investment in Canada: With reference to IDC statistics, Vala discusses the increase in Canadian AI investment, exploring the factors driving this trend, and the challenges in talent acquisition and data quality.Future of Work and Generative AI: The episode delves into how generative AI could alter the way we work, pinpointing industries or job roles that may witness remarkable transformations.Ethics and Trust in Generative AI: Vala shares insights into the ethical concerns around generative AI and offers guidance on how businesses can foster trust in their AI technologies.Salesforce's AI Endeavors: Hear about Salesforce's initiatives in AI and generative AI, including their approach to ensuring ethical and responsible use.Advice on Adopting Generative AI: Vala provides invaluable advice for those considering generative AI adoption, detailing preparation steps for successful implementation.Special Acknowledgments: A heartfelt thank you to our banking partner RBC for their unwavering financial support, UPS for handling logistics with finesse, and Xero for meticulous financial management.Call to Action: Be sure to subscribe to the CanadianSME Small Business Magazine podcast. More engaging conversations are on the horizon, so don't miss out!

Canadian AI experts are sounding the alarm about the dangers of artificial intelligence by urging Ottawa to pass legislation quickly as the technology advances. The government is currently working on legislation that would eventually penalize companies and individuals who use the technology unethically but experts fear it

Nova Scotia fire damage, Florida Pride cancellations, Canadian cheese winner, Canadian AI regulation, Manhattanhenge, Soccer referee body cams, Illinois anti book ban, 24 Sussex construction and more.

ChatGPT is fast becoming the biggest trend of 2023. But what does that mean for writers?Like many, I've been using ChatGPT intermittently over the past few weeks and months for various parts of the writing process. I don't describe myself as an advanced ChatGPT user, but I use it for some administrative aspects of running a blog and content websites. For example, I use it to generate iterations of headlines, write SEO meta descriptions, create ideas for FAQs that I put at the bottom of articles, and even develop article outlines. However, I do not use ChatGPT or AI tools to write an entire article because, let's face it, the results can be mixed. I still like to insert some personality and research into the pieces I might write.AI tools can be a real time saver. I even used an AI tool to help develop a headline for this week's podcast episode. So, if you're listening to this, you must have found the headline at least slightly engaging. That said, many writers and creatives from other professions, particularly artists, are worried about how AI will potentially replace them. In this week's interview, I caught up with the Canadian AI author, Tim Boucher. He describes how he uses multiple AI tools to produce short-form fiction. One key thing Tim said struck me. He's not using AI to produce his short stories and novels faster or more efficiently. If anything, he's using AI to experiment and explore different creative approaches.In this episode, we discuss:the tools Tim is usinghis writing promptshow AI is helping him experimentResources:Tim's websiteSupport the showIf you enjoyed the show please leave a review on Apple. And if you have any questions you can find me on Twitter @BryanJCollinsThanks for listening!

Read transcript It's time for Press B's March Radness! A month long celebration of salt and tears as each week in March we do bracket tournment style episodes. On this week's episode of Press B, join our hosts as they dive into the world of video game villains and battle it out to crown the ultimate bad guy! We've assembled (scientifically and randomized) brackets of 12 of the most iconic and memorable video game villains, from Bowser to Sephiroth to GLaDOS. Listen in as they debate and discuss each villain's strengths, weaknesses, and overall impact on their respective game's story and gameplay. Who will come out on top and be crowned the ultimate video game villain? Tune in to find out! Press B To Cancel now on Youtube! For updates and more episodes please visit our website www.pressbtocancel.com, or find us on Twitter @pressbtocancel and Instagram @pressbtocancel. Special thanks to The Last Ancient on SoundCloud for our podcast theme. Transcript: Chard (A): If he dies, he dies. Greatest video game vitillins today on. Wulff (B): Um. Chard (A): Welcome, everybody, back to another actual, live bless you episode of Presbyter cancel tonight. I am the blessed host of this evening's episode. But I'm not alone. As Jake say. No, I'm not alone. I'm with four of the greatest villains I know running amongst us here. Jake, how are you, sir? Jake (C): I'm doing good. Thanks for being having me back. Chard (A): Thanks for being having back. Thanks for being having back, too. You hit me. I'm just werewolf. Jake (C): I'm distracted setting shit up and oh, crap. Chard (A): How are you set up if we're running? Jake (C): I always set stuff up. Sins (D): The intro. Chard (A): No, even every mad scientist has an evil contraption werewolf. How are you, sir? No. Wulff (B): Is the audio long? Sins (D): There we go. Chard (A): There it is. Wulff (B): Okay, so I unmuted after the sneeze. Cool. Chard (A): It works. Wulff (B): Just muted after the sneeze. Great. Chard (A): Your reverse machines work great. Wulff (B): I apologize for that sneeze. Sins (D): Hey, I caught a light sneeze. Chard (A): Of the evening. I guess I also made my own pretty hate machine. Citistar, how are you? Sins (D): I am Valaneous tonight. Chard (A): There's a pill for that GP. How are you? No whimsical, friend. GP (E): Speaking of Charlie, speaking of whatever those erection pills were that you sent me, they are nuts if we can keep this episode under 2 hours, because at the end of about an hour and a half from now, I will need to go to the Er. Two and a half hours ago, my. Chard (A): Wife accidentally washed those pills, and now I cannot get my pants to fold. Guys, just as bad as that joke are these people that are on our list today. You like that, Segue? Jake (C): That's pretty damn smooth. GP (E): We go hard. Chard (A): We do in the paint, as a matter of fact. Sports reference. Sports ball. Sins (D): Sports ball. Chard (A): Guys, it is march. Radness. We continue fourth on our continuation of brackets bracketeering the brack on tears. Isn't that a Jack White band? No, we're talking music, and we're definitely talking music and sports today. And unfortunately, these guys have come along. We're going to break these guys down. We have several selected villains that we are going to do in our own scientifically, whimsical, Canadian lies way of discussing who tyrannically. Sorry, tyrannically is what I meant to say. Jake (C): I have whimsical back. I'd rather be whimsical. But, you know, out of our no. Chard (A): There'S no Whimsical out of our list of these people. Now, we know there's other villains out there. We dug very deep on the surface of these to try and figure out which one of these villains would be good. Some you'll know, some we won't know. It'll happen, trust me. And some you will probably rant rave that these were poor choices, but guess what? We're the host, so we pick what we want, because that's how things work around here. Sins (D): If it's not on our list, call out in the comments or come yell at us in discord there you go. Chard (A): Yeah, that 100% of us have full time jobs. It's very difficult to find a list when you're having people yelling at you all day. Well, okay. Sorry. 90% of us. Wow. Sins (D): Jeff throwing down early. Chard (A): Time job. Wulff (B): You take care of it. Chard (A): That's not easy. That beautiful background behind you. That's beautiful. That's hard work. Wulff (B): I don't get to see it as. Sins (D): Much as I used to in Chat. Jeff's throwing down early. GP (E): Let's ease up on the spoilers. Chard (A): What do you think? Jake (C): Kafka may not even be there. Sins (D): Kefa didn't make our list. Jake (C): Yeah, he's a small time you guys. Chard (A): Are using the Kafka didn't make our list. Chard Monk didn't make the stream. Wulff (B): All right. Chard (A): It's kind of a one, and it's like, if there's one thing that comes with me everywhere, that's not my wife, it's Kefca. Let's just be honest, all right? I do. I'm trying to get a Kefca tattoo, as a matter of fact. That's not a joke. That's true. Let's go ahead and fire things off. We're going to start with our first two villain matchup back to back here. Our first selection is Joker Mark Hamill. Sins (D): Mark, joker. GP (E): Need to specify that. Chard (A): And Bowser from Mario from the Mario Brothers series. Jake (C): The Marios. Yeah. Sins (D): We're specifically talking video game versions of these villains. So Joker, Mark Hamill, I know that there's similarities, but it is the video game arkham series and not the cartoon series, where he's the Joker. Jake (C): Right. He's great in both, but specifically the video game in this case. Yes. GP (E): Also, when we're talking about let's read. Chard (A): Everything'S about video games here. Right. GP (E): But also, is the metric or the rubric that we are saying for best villain, meaning, like, most iconic, most likable, most successful. What's the metric here? Jake (C): I think we have to be well rounded with this. Right. We have to look at their impact in the game, their successes, their character. I think it's a well rounded we should look at all angles when we're talking about these villains. GP (E): Yeah, agreed. Wulff (B): Yeah. Chard (A): We got to think about some longevity issues that are in here too, because Bowser has been an iconic villain for a long time, while the Joker has been an iconic villain, but not in video game tropes for as long as Bowser. Jake (C): Okay. Sins (D): And if we do look at backstory, then Joker actually comes all the way in from whatever 1930s or 40s or whatever it was, right? If we're talking backstory. Chard (A): Right. Not joaquin. Phoenix's. Joker, by the way. Sins (D): No. Chard (A): Still a great movie. Jake (C): No. GP (E): I could do an entire podcast episode on why that movie upset me. Chard (A): All right, who wants to go round robin on this first? I'll go. I'll tell you what, I'm going to just announce this right now. I know Sinister said he would go last, but I'll tell you what, as the host, I will be the tiebreaker of going last. I will make that decision. Sins (D): This is how Kefco wins call me a tyrant. This is how Kefko wins. Chard (A): I'm trying to ease everybody's mind on here. Although I do like it when GP says, all right, Char, well, you and I, our opinions don't matter. So what do you pick? GP (E): I'm going to go and call it Chard. You and I, our opinions don't matter. Chard (A): So who wants to go first in this round? Jake (C): I'll go for this one. Yeah. The randomized brackets are really cruel here because this is a tough matchup. I mean, Bowser is one of the longest standing video game villains. It was randomized. We discussed this off this, off the stream. It's randomized, scientifically, accurately, through the AI. Anyway, bowser has been a longtime villain, but Mark Hamill, forget the animated series, forget everything else in his career. Just the arkham joker, like Arkham city and Arkham Asylum. He is so good. His voice acting is just iconic as this villain. He's chilling. He's just scary. He's such a great villain and such a great performance in the Arkan games. I mean, Bowser is great and all, and he's a big part of the Mario franchise. But I mean, come on. Joker, I think, is the villain. I think he's like, such an iconic villain. I like Bowser, but I think especially the more recent Mario games where they had the opportunity for things like me voice acting or a story, they don't really do that right. Like, even in Mario Odyssey, the story was Bowser's kidnapping Peach to get married. It makes no sense, and it's barely even a damn plot. So even though he's like, iconic looking, he's not really impactful in the storylines to Mario. Not that there is one to begin with. I mean, he's memorable, I guess, because of nostalgia. But I think Mark Campbell's performance as the joker in Arkham is so damn good. Sins (D): All right, I want to go next. That's why I was holding up my finger there. Chard (A): Because I was getting my bingo card out? Sins (D): No, because I was going to make the argument, you already did this, but I guess I'm going to probably drive it home a little bit. Bowser, while being a long term video game villain, he hasn't actively tried to murder at mass levels. His whole goal is to marry Peach and rule the mushroom kingdom. Right? And then here's the Joker who has literally tried to kill everyone through infection or some other whatever, and he does it with almost a lack of reasoning or care. We've done this trope before, but some people just want to watch, so well. Ben right. GP (E): Specifically, your Mark Hamill impression is horrible. Sins (D): It is. Chard (A): I thought that was Bowser. GP (E): I should have said that. Jake (C): Jack black. Sins (D): But one thing I want to point out, and this happened, I think this was in Arkham Asylum. The first of kind of the video games that we're talking about at the end, he actually has destroyed the cure and he is infected and he knows that Batman is going to save him. And so he goes into this just balls to the wall. Because he knows that no matter how bad of a villain he is, his hero is going to save him because he knows Batman is that good. And so he is just that bad that he is like I will destroy my chances of even surviving this because I know that the hero is going to save me. So I also vote joker. GP (E): Interesting. I hear what you're saying, Sinistar, and also I hear what you're saying, daddy, but I think that it's tough. I think the more iconic villain here in terms of video games is going to have to be Bowser. Which villain do I find more ultimately captivating? Interesting? Would I rather party with all those things going to go to the Joker? But if we're just talking across the spectrum of pop culture, I don't know, it's tough. If the Joker did not exist in movies, TV shows, or anything other than the Arkham series, I don't think he would be as prolific as Bowser, who is primarily in the video games. Yes, he's been in some movies, dennis Hopper, but that's not what he's known for. Sins (D): We don't talk about Super Mario Brothers. Jake (C): Yeah. Chard (A): John Lang Guizamo was excellent as an Italian plumber. GP (E): Okay, first off, John Lang Guizamo is great in about anything. I'll watch him read the dictionary. Johnny Legs, if you're watching, I love you. Hope I can call you Johnny Legs. The other part of that, though no, again, I think if the Joker didn't exist outside of video games, he would be a cool villain, but I don't know that he would be as prolific as Bowser. So I think I got to vote Bowser, even though, in fact, right now, I'm wearing my Batman pajama pants. You guys know I'm a big Batman fan. I got to give it to Bowser. I'll lock it up. Wulff (B): All right. Chard (A): That was an incredible twist of events I did not expect. Wulff (B): Let's look at the lengths that Bowser will go to accomplish his goals. Chard (A): He is willing oh, you're going to read the book. Wulff (B): No, he's going to read the he. GP (E): Is the biggest employer of the Mushroom Kingdom, I wager that. Wulff (B): But he's willing to go to the moon to accomplish his goals. He is willing to. What was the other one? He'll work with Mario if he absolutely has to. GP (E): Mario RPG. I like that. Wulff (B): Which he's done. He can set aside his personal differences to achieve his goals. And when a villain really wants to accomplish what they want to accomplish, they have to learn to be able to move forward with the circumstances they're given. And Bowser always does that. Bowser also lied to his child about who his mom was. Who the fuck does that? That's dark. Jake (C): That's how bad a villain he is. He lies to his children. He's a bad daddy. That's what. Chard (A): His nephews we have the daddy of daddy. Sins (D): I want you to remember somebody who knows something. I want you to remember this argument for later. Because me? Yeah, because there is a villain that we are going to bring up daughter issues. GP (E): No, I don't want to know. I have done my way to ignore the list that you all do some research. Chard (A): I know what you're going to talk about. Jake (C): Okay, real quick. Bowser versus Mario. Can't we all agree that Mario is killed more than Bowser? So isn't Mario a better villain than Bowser anyway? So that automatically disqualifies. GP (E): That goes back to what I was saying though. I mean, Bowser is the largest employer of the Mushroom Kingdom. You have the Princess Kingdom who rules over all these individuals. And then you have the Plumber who comes in and kills them all trying. Jake (C): He's a bad employer. He's a bad boss, but doesn't make him a bad guy. GP (E): Look, yes, we all know horrible employers, but in the end of the day, is he not putting food on tables? I don't know. Chard (A): It sounds like the premise for horrible boss is three. Wulff (B): Yeah. How many things does Bowser kill? We never see him kill anything unless he kills Mario. Right. Have you watched Mario brother throwing yoshis into lava pits and off of cliffs? Sins (D): Yeah, never mind. Never mind punching yoshi in the back of the head to make him eat things. Chard (A): Yeah, right. Wulff (B): Friends. He's throwing off of cliffs and into lava pits. GP (E): For what it's worth, count for a lot. It's mutually. Wulff (B): Mario is the villain. Jake (C): I think so. Browser's biggest crime is just not having his fortresses up to safety. GP (E): That's not true. There's the kidnapping and presumed attempted rape, which you can't sweep that under the rug. Chard (A): That's true. Sins (D): Trigger warning. GP (E): Sorry folks, nobody's a piece of shit. But I think if the issue is iconic have we voted? Did everybody go? Wulff (B): I said bowser. To me. Bowser. No line is too much to cross for him. Jake (C): Okay. GP (E): Yeah. Jake (C): So it's two to two, I guess, right? Chard (A): Yeah, the tiebreaker is wow. Jake (C): There you go. Your opinion does matter. Chard (A): It does matter. It never matters that far. Okay, well, on that note, listen. You guys say that Bowser hasn't killed a whole lot of people. I've watched Cindy Star play Mario Brothers. That's not true. He's killed a lot of people. GP (E): You're thinking of gravity. You're thinking of gravity and spatial awareness. Chard (A): He did design spatial awareness. That's true. The big villain here is actually gravity and spatial awareness. That's true. Sins (D): In a trick twist, the first bracket goes to gravity and spatial awareness. Chard (A): Aka Bowser. Listen, bowser turned the Mushroom Kingdom people into bricks and Mario did kill them. That's where I thought you were going with that wolf. I got to lean on this whole thing with me and the Joker. The Joker and Mark Hamill. Fantastic. Let's think of it this way. I'm going to do how my discussion on the phone went today. Listen. Mark Hamill. Incredible actor. Wonderful job. Top tier, couldn't have done any better. Top notch. However, not going to cut it in this bracket. I got to go with Bowser on this one. And purely because, like GP said, if it wasn't for the Joker being iconic and other things and in comic books before he was put into video games, he's everywhere. It's not really a video game character. He's everywhere. Bowser is a video game character. He was created for gaming and gaming likeness and then has spawned into Dennis Hopper playing King Cooper and the whole nine yards. I'm just saying that if we're going to the roots of video game villains, got to go with Bowser. And it may be the nostalgia again talking. Don't know, don't care. I'll go with bowser. So I've noticed that the bowser fight. GP (E): In Super Mario World. Sorry for the Super Nintendo. After you jump on him and he's in his little thing, he pops out and she's waving. She's like hell. Not to show my sensibilities here, but that was terrifying to me as a kid. She's obviously not wanting to be there. Don't do that. Sins (D): Yeah. Chard (A): Horrible, right? Sins (D): And Bowser, don't stand on her when you're flying your little weird propeller chair. GP (E): That's a TARDIS. There's more room down there than what you think. Jake (C): Yeah, figure it on the inside than isn't. Sins (D): I don't want to hear about Bowsers down there. It's fine. Chard (A): I was going to say it's an undetectable extension charm. GP (E): I love that. All right. Bowser. Jake (C): Bowser. Chard (A): Okay, so round two. So round one goes to Bowser of the Mario franchise. That's fantastic. I'm excited about this one. I'm really excited about this next matchup. We had discussed this amongst our MPs together as a team and we were kind of very him and ha. But Jake actually had a very solid point about this. Could have some really good discussion going into it. So without further ado, I had a good point. Sins (D): No, it's getting delayed. Chard (A): As I am told quite often when I say see, I say things that are smart, I usually get retorted with, well, a broken clock is right twice a day, too. So I'm going to hit you with that one. 1%. One in a row, Jake. One in a row. Sins (D): Except for you're running in military time. And it's once a day, sir. GP (E): My anxiety can't handle this. What's the bracket? Is it like two minutes? Jake (C): Come on. Chard (A): Don't a, I'm going to pronounce this the way I feel it needs to pronounce. Do not at me. This is Magis from Chrono trigger fame. Wulff (B): What? Chard (A): And Handsome Jack versus Mages and Handsome Jack. Sins (D): All right. Can I go first? Jake (C): Only you called megas. GP (E): Maybe. Chard (A): Not called magic. Called magic. Thank you. Sins (D): Look, we're going to have a GIF versus GIF argument here. It's fine. Like my juffed, I'm going to start with Magis. So my experience with Magus Magus, Magus, magus is so far I have only had him as the villain, and I ran him off. I haven't seen some sort of redemption story, but I've heard tell of redemption story. Chard (A): Should we have Citizen mute his headphones for this discussion after he's done making. Sins (D): No, well, it's fine. Jake (C): He's already past the point of the spoilers for that anyway, right? Like you did the NC Palace. I saw you stream it. Chard (A): Yeah, no, he did not go to the end of the he's in the area, like right before one of the boss fights. Sins (D): It's fine. It's okay. That game is 30 years old. However years old it is. Jake (C): Yeah, there is a redemption in that. He's not the big bad, right? In crone trigger. It's Lavos. That's the big bad. Sins (D): And that's kind of where I'm going, is even knowing that he's a redemption story. He did start the whole Lavos mess, right? Well, didn't he kind of kick it off? I mean, it's fine anyway, but with the redemption story, he feels a little soft. He feels a little soft as far as a villain goes. Now, Handsome Jack handsome Jack literally places a floating space station in orbit that can nuke basically whatever he wants. And when his daughter, who has the Siren abilities, accidentally kills her mother through a fight with another person, he decides that he's going to imprison her to power his station. So if you want to talk a daughter arc, if you want to talk a father daughter arc, here's a guy that's like, well, sure, you accidentally killed your mother, but you know what? You're now my power source and enslaves her and then proceeds to basically destroy any vault hunter that decides to show up on Pandora. He purposefully murders, unless they have the chance to open the vault for him specifically. GP (E): But he was honest about who the mother was, and I think that counts. I agree. Handsome Jack for the win on this one. Sins (D): Yeah, I'm going Handsome Jack over. Magus. Magus. Magus. GP (E): Have you guys heard of Dragon Ball Z? Chard (A): Yeah. GP (E): Who is the greatest villain from Dragon Ball Z? Here's a hint. Not Vegeta. Chard (A): That's true. GP (E): Okay, well, I'll close it there, but no law applies. And between these two I got to go. Handsome Jack. Though I do very much enjoy Maggis. Sins (D): That's two for Handsome Jack, then. GP (E): His Majesty. No, too much. Sorry. Chard (A): Booker T. Booker. Majesty. Booker. Sins (D): Yeah. Chard (A): Wrestler do you want to go or. Wulff (B): You want I have a quick question. Is Handsome Jack's daughter, serif or Seraphim, whatever her name was. Whoever. Sins (D): No, he enslaves her later when his I think his daughter ends up dying and he ends up putting the other Siren in her place. Wulff (B): I didn't finish. I only got like maybe halfway through or something. Sins (D): Yeah. Angel. Thank you. Wulff (B): Angel. Yeah. Thank you, jeff but McGuff, he was an asshole. Chard (A): I love it. Wulff (B): But his intentions were in the right place. He was trying to do something for the greater good. He wasn't trying to be a villain. And his end goal was to save the world, not destroy it. Right? That's not much of a villain. He's Chronos nemesis for a time, but he's not the villain of the game. Handsome Jack is a villain. I got to say that's coming from I knew about his redemption chance the first time I played Chrono trigger, and I still said, Fuck that, Maggus. You're going down. GP (E): He's not your gus. He's Mcguss. Wulff (B): Yeah, he's Mcguss. Jake (C): As a youth, he was Janus. As an adult. He's megas janus. Wulff (B): Janice. GP (E): Which would you rather be called? Anus. Chard (A): Look, we don't get to pick her. Jake (C): Names that her parents bestowed on us. And he was named J Anus. And that's just the way it is, my kids. Wulff (B): Question. How do you pronounce his sister's name? Chard (A): Shala. Wulff (B): I'm sorry, I derailed the conversation there. Sins (D): Quick aside, quick aside. I do have to give Handsome Jack. He did create. Or he bought, actually. But without Handsome Jack, we wouldn't have butt stallion but. Chard (A): The iconic. Wulff (B): But my vote is Handsome Jack on this one. GP (E): Yeah. Jake (C): Okay. Chard (A): Well, Jake, looks like you're, in my opinion, don't matter. So what do you got, bud? Jake (C): I tell you. Here's the thing. Okay, fine. So you want to argue that Handsome Jack is maybe the more sinister, the more evil villain. That's fine. Villain does not necessarily always mean evil. Sometimes it could just be a jerk and that could be a villain, right? GP (E): Are you talking about Kirby? Jake (C): No. Kirby has many villains. Can you do those? Misunderstood. Chard (A): Anyway, is this a veiled attack? Jake (C): No. So maggus. Magus magus magus magus maggas. His aura, okay? His look, his garb, the cape, the rubber gloves, the dark slick back hair, the paley pasty white skin, the red eyes. The theme music in the boss battle with Megas is fucking iconic and is one of my favorite boss encounters. And you don't do boss encounters against friends. He's the bad guy. Is he the world's most evil villain? No, but he's a pretty awesome bad guy. GP (E): Conversation is, though. Jake (C): Handsome Jack is just evil. Chard (A): Sure, but he's just rich. Jake (C): He doesn't look cool. He's got a cool horse, he spends his money. Sins (D): He's handsome. Is he? GP (E): We will have other episodes where we discuss handsome doable dude in video games. Is that is not this one. Chard (A): Wow. Jake (C): Ride his crystal horse all he wants. He's not the best bad guy in this match. Sins (D): He purposefully diamond horse. It's a horse made of diamonds. Literally of diamonds. But he is so handsome that he put his face on a whole bunch of doppelgangers on purpose. Jake (C): Look, is Batman the best hero because he's rich? No. Chard (A): He's arguably not a very good hero to begin with, but let's not get into that debate. Sins (D): Jeff. Jeff is correct. Wulff (B): In Chat, this isn't about heroes. This is about village. Sins (D): Jeff is correct. In Chat, Handsome Jack succeeded. GP (E): Now, is it not Handsome Jack. Jake (C): It's Handsome handsome also, am I not wrong? Chard (A): Who cursed? Jake (C): Wasn't it not Magus who cursed, Frog? It was maggus, right? GP (E): Glenn? Chard (A): Magis. GP (E): Not to dachshund, but Glenn, yes. Jake (C): Who cursed? Glenn. Chard (A): Glenn of 600 Ad. Sorry, dude, my bad. GP (E): Wow. Everybody's going to go hunting for Glenn now. Sins (D): It was Maegus. Wulff (B): To be fair, Cyrus had no business dragging Glenn around with him to fight McGuff. Chard (A): They were buggy. I go everywhere. Dennis Star, he doesn't drag me around. I just fucking chill up. Wulff (B): How many squires? How many squires? Just Glenn. He's the only one taken advantage of by heroes in that game. Chard (A): Cyrus is so good, he doesn't need multiple squires. He only needs g. Lynn all right, so we're going to go with Mages on that one, Jake? Is that what you're saying? Jake (C): Yeah. I'm saying magus mages cool. GP (E): Please agree. How to pronounce jump. J Is it Forest Jump are we having. Chard (A): I don't know a lot about Borderlands, I know a lot about Chrono Trigger, and I'm going to go ahead and chime in on this one. Magus is not a villain. He is a man of circumstance and time. Literally of time. He's a man that is trying to get revenge. Sinister plug ears earmuffs sinister ear muffs. Thank you. He's a man that's trying to get revenge on what his mother did to him and his family and how and his sister and all the shit that went down with there. The man was just trying to get back at him and unfortunately, people were getting in his way to get it done. Yes, it is the Vegeta complex, we will call it that. It is vegeta. It's literally vegeta. Wulff (B): Literally trying to what his family broke. Chard (A): With the risk of how this sounds, it's Vegas. It's what it is. It's what it's going to be. We're going with it. I don't care. Don't die on me, Jake. Jake (C): Really? Chard (A): Vegas? Yes. Handsome Jack, you could put your there you go. Handsome Jack is so fucking twisted that in his brain, he thinks he's the hero. GP (E): Well, that's the hallmark of a good villain. Chard (A): Yeah, he thinks he's doing the right thing, but it's so fucking twisted and fucked up, he doesn't care. He still thinks he's right. He still thinks he's getting roll up. I did research today. I've barely played any Borderlands, so I have plenty of people here to tell me if I'm wrong or not. GP (E): You knew he was from Borderlands. Chard (A): Like we are killing off all the Volt hunters because he thinks he's doing it right and he's doing world dominance. Thinks he's the hero. He thinks he's saving his daughter by turning her into the power source for his doomsday device. So as much as I love Mages, or Ages, or Mcgaggas, or Janus Forest Guillumpus, I'm going with Handsome Jack. Sins (D): It's Forrest. Chard (A): I did not stutter. So, I think Handsome Jack is going to be the true villain out of these two. I think that Mages is a really good story and could be a really like on its own debate on on his experience. His depiction is direction, but for actual villainry, I got to go with Handsome Jack on that one. Jake (C): Look, Handsome Jack doesn't have a theme song. Just saying. He does not have a clip. Chard (A): Mages theme song is easily I had it recreated for my stream. That's how good it is. Sins (D): I love that Handsome Jack gets not one, but two games, right? Two entire games of him as the villain. Chard (A): If Chronocross wasn't garbage, then maybe Mages could have had two games too. But unfortunately they decided to shit all over that one. But listen, in terms of cool factor, if we're talking cool factor and badass fights and great lead ins and music and shit, majors wins nine times out of ten and twice on Sundays. He's incredible. But in the villainry department, without spoiling it for Sinistar, heads of Jack wins. You're good. GP (E): What constitutes as a theme song for a villain? The reason I ask there is a song my dad used to hum when I was a kid and he would not important. Chard (A): Let's move on. Was it an original piece? Jake (C): Wow. GP (E): I don't know. Chard (A): Made it up as he went. That it's his this was fucking dark. You want to go dark? I'll dive right into that black pit with you. Right. Sins (D): Sorry, YouTube. Chard (A): Everybody said he was going to be agreeable. Sins (D): Yeah, he's agreeably. Tainting all of every story with his. GP (E): Dad always up on the backstory on the lore. The GP. Chard (A): Lore. Doesn't the GP lore. GP (E): Yeah. Chard (A): All right, guys, let's move on to the next one. So I just recently got to know one of our villains in this particular bracket, and I'm pretty excited about it because she's fucking funny as shit. She kills me, literally. Tries to at least a couple of times. And then this other one is we went with the human form, the later form of this in particular. So we're going to go with Gladys from Portal and Ganondorf Ganondorf, the dorf in the later versions. Ganondorf Dorphy. Good old the zelda. This is a good bracket montage. GP (E): It also sucks because gentlemen, these are great bad guys. Start your bad AIS. Sins (D): Who's starting this one? GP (E): I don't want to. Wulff (B): I will start. So we've got the humanoid gannon. Ganondorf. Or we've got genetic life form and disc operating system. Chard (A): But she's so funny. Sins (D): Have you played number two? Yeah, I've been playing no, jimmy, have. Wulff (B): You played the show? Yeah. Sins (D): Okay. Wulff (B): Portal two. Chard (A): This would be the time where I pull out my steam deck and say, yes, I've been playing on my steam deck, but it's in the living room because I was playing it on my steam deck. Wulff (B): Absolutely. I've played portal one and two. I love those games. But glados. Oh, man, I don't know. This is a tough one because Gannon is just such an evil prick who is relentless, right? GP (E): What an. Ahole, absolutely. Chard (A): But he has a smug look on his face too. Jake (C): Don't punchable face. Chard (A): Big fucking nose, asshole. Wulff (B): Gladys isn't even really capable of emotion. She's just doing what needs to be done. Sins (D): No, but she is an asshole prick too. With the whole parents thing. Your parents don't love you. Or this air is recycled from outside. I'm just kidding. Or I saw a deer today, but you don't get to. Chard (A): Stasis. Wulff (B): She is definitely endlessly demeaning, I will give you that. Chard (A): Which most people, when they come out of stasis, tend to lose a little bit of weight and are fatigued. You don't appear to have lost anything. Damn, bitch. Call me fat man. Sins (D): When she has celebration for the character's parents, confetti comes out. Chard (A): Oh, I'm sorry, they don't love you. Wulff (B): It's just a insults and attacks constantly. Sins (D): Just verbal. Wulff (B): Not just verbal, but you know what I mean, because she does try to kill shell numerous times. Sins (D): What about when she's in the potato? She actually kind of has a personality with feelings when she's in the potato. Wulff (B): I think that's partly because she doesn't have the personality core limiters. Sins (D): Right, right. Wulff (B): So it's really all the Tweaking to her systems that have made her how she is. She was not inherently that way, but at the end of the day, those tweakings to the systems are still Gladys and not the original person that she was based on. That worked for Cave Johnson. At her core. She's Cave, johnson's assistant. But the personality limiters have made her glados. Right. And that's what we see as the villain in Portal. And then you've got Gan, and again, like I said, he's just a relentless reincarnating self aggrandizing wanting to take over the world. Bastard, right? GP (E): Yeah, he's the archetype. Wulff (B): Yeah. Chard (A): I don't know. GP (E): Part of what makes Blatant so kind of scary and chilling is because her motives were kind of unknown. To what degree? What is her end game? If I die in this building, is she going to continue mocking my corpse? Sins (D): Well, and that's the thing that I want to bring up is that's the thing I want to bring up is yes, Ganondorf has continued to try to take over the world. Right? But here's the thing about Gladys. The world has already ended and she's continuing on with this last person. Jake (C): Is that the lore for Portal? Wulff (B): We don't know for sure. Sins (D): You don't know? But there's no humans. You don't ever see any other humans. Jake (C): Right? Well, the facility is empty except for the one character. Sins (D): Well, but there are allusions to basically saying like, this is post the end of humanity. There are illusions to that. Jake (C): Okay, you guys kept saying Ganondorf is wanting to take over the world. He does, though, in Arcarena of Time, he actually ends up taking over the world when Link is stuck in a time thing. And when you come out as adult Link, the world is basically an apocalypse. Gannon rules everything. So he kind of does win in Link to the Past. He maintains dominion over the entire dark world. So he's always had in some capacity like this. He controls vast number of people and, like, takes him down. But he still he wins to a degree. Right? Wulff (B): Yeah. Well, he also you come into Breath of the Wild, and Gannon has already won. You're well past Gannon winning. Sins (D): That's true. Wulff (B): Gannon is supposed to be the physical form of evil in The Legend of Zelda. Right. Like, that's what Gannon is, no matter what iteration of it. Gannon is the physical manifestation of evil in Zelda. Sins (D): Right. Wulff (B): Whereas glados she's got goals with psychopathic tendencies. Right. And it's hard to say which is scarier, kind of no, this is crazy, is scary and Gladys is crazy. GP (E): And you don't have enough information because of the Starkness and the scarcity of anything in the Portal games, your knowledge of what is is severely limited. But you know that there's this very irritating but oddly charming, funny, sexy, early bond kind of voice talking to you. Sins (D): Anyway, Gannon, real quick aside, real quick aside, there's a poker game on steam poker night. Wulff (B): Poker night at the inventory. Sins (D): Yeah. And the second one, Gladys, is the dealer. And it is delicious. It is absolutely delicious. Chard (A): I just had dinner, too. Wulff (B): This is a tough one. Chard (A): I forgot Wolf hasn't been yeah, I. Wulff (B): Think I have to it's it's very close, but I gotta go Gannon on this one. GP (E): I agree, Gannon dorf. But who would I rather probably have a conversation with? Gladys? Sins (D): There's two for Gannon. There is a scene in my mind there is a scene in my mind in Portal Two when Wheatley has been helping or you've been helping Wheatley get the system activated again and all of a sudden that elevator starts going up and all those switches start flipping. And then you see Gladys peel herself off the floor in her cybernetic bits and pieces and it is terrifying. And then on top of that, for those that have VR whatever, that steam that VR. No, but I'm talking the game that they made where you can like but it's all portal based game stuff. Chard (A): Oh, is it really? Yes. Sins (D): And Gladys gladys is massive and terrifying. Wulff (B): So they did something. Chard (A): You can play portal on VR. Sins (D): No, it's its own game. I can't remember what it's called. There's a scene where you assemble the little dudes that are in Portal Two. Wulff (B): And there's a scene where you okay, this is a thing that they built to sort of teach you how to use the valve index. Sins (D): It was prior to valve index. This was during live. Wulff (B): Okay. Sins (D): But if you go into that, you put that headset on it, you look up a gladys, it's called the lab. That's what it is. It's the lab. Chard (A): The lab. Sins (D): It is terrifying. Yeah, it is terrifying. I'm going to say Gladys because to. GP (E): Me. Sins (D): There is nothing more sinister than what seems like the world has already ended and the villain is still going. Like the villain has one last toy and is still going. So I'm going to vote for Gladys because it's not even trying to take over the world. She just wants to experiment on these people. GP (E): Just wants to watch the world burn. I think I just came up with that. Chard (A): That is kind. Sins (D): So gladys here. Jake (C): So I was already to say Gannon but then sister is making a good point and then Wolf said something that's sticking with me where it's just like Gannon is the embodiment of evil. Sure. But Gladys is crazy and crazy is scary and terrifying. Wulff (B): Yeah, crazy beats scary is what it was. I think. Chard (A): Crazy hot. Crazy hot scale, right? Jake (C): So Link against Gannon. Link kind of knows where he stands with Gannon, right. At all times. He's evil. He's the bad guy. His mission is defeat Gannon. He knows this. They could enter a room together and they know where he stands with Gannon. He's just the bad guy. Glados you never know. Is she throwing you a bone, throwing you some cake, trying to get you to help you? Or is she just experimenting as another trap, another twist, another minor cake. GP (E): There will be cake. You will. Sins (D): Spoiler. Warning for those that haven't played portal one I'm going to say this. There is a line where she says in one of the experiments she says I lied to you but I won't lie to you again. And then later, like a couple of experiments later she says you will be baked and then there will be cake. And you think it's a slip of the tongue. GP (E): But there is no tongue. Jake (C): Yeah, it's not. GP (E): There's only a disk operating system. Jake (C): The other thing is too is Gannon. Chard (A): Is he's the bad guy. Jake (C): He's kind of like created these dungeons or added his minions to these dungeons. His final tower is constructed by him. It's really not effective at all. Really. Link easily trounces the final dungeon arcane of time and makes it to the top. It's not much of an obstacle. Whereas Gladys has made a maze of traps and just terrifyingly difficult puzzles to torment and torture the player. I actually think Gladys I think is the better villain in this case. I didn't think I'd go this way but I'm going to vote Gladys. Sins (D): All right, one last thing. And this has no voting like tie to it whatsoever. I talked to Chard about this but the anger module is voiced by Mike Patton. GP (E): Also Ganondorf I think has to win with horse riding abilities. So not that's part of the official you ever see Gladys on a horse? I've not. Chard (A): How fortuitous that I am here yet again. Being the tiebreaker between you chosen charge. Jake (C): Your opinion matters again. Wulff (B): Yeah. Jake (C): Two for two. GP (E): Wow. Chard (A): Two for two. That's never did it right there. GP (E): What do we got? Chard (A): I'll approach. It the same way that my phone call went this morning. Gannon Dorf is a fantastic additional fuck it. Gannon is an evil motherfucker and he's repetitive, but it's the trope. It's the same thing, right? I'm going to kidnap Zelda user. GP (E): It's consistency. Chard (A): My shit is pretty consistent and nobody wants to hear about that either. Sins (D): It's true. GP (E): Charge. Deuce. Moving on to the next round. Chard (A): That is my shit. Sins (D): In a surprise twist, not only do we have gravity going one round, but we have charged shit going on round three. GP (E): What kills more people? Gravity or charge? Jake (C): Please continue. GP (E): I'm sorry, I'm done interrupting. Chard (A): I am Gwen Stefani. Shit. GP (E): But one more thing. Chard (A): Okay, Fenda? Wulff (B): Yeah. Chard (A): I got to go. Gladys. So here's my thing about Gladys. Sinister literally pulled the thing from my brain is the thing coming up and you're flipping all the switches on and Gladys coming in, following that. Gladys remembers you killing her, and she constantly reminds you of it the entire time you're running around inside the fucking maze. And every time you feel like you're going to get out just puts you further, deeper in and then gives you some fucking snide comment about you. That's horrible. And it's literally it's the kid with the magnifying glass on the anthill. That's exactly what it is. She is playing with you the entire time. GP (E): One of my favorite things about Portal was discovering that it was kind of a psychological horror game going into it. You don't know it. It's fun, it's cheeky. It's a puzzle game. Chard (A): You just think it's a puzzle game. GP (E): Oh, my God, I'm getting shot at. As you're learning more, I really don't. Chard (A): Want your learning the entire way. Yeah, she's twisted. She's twisted. Fuck. And she does want to kill you, but unlike Gannon, wants to take over the world and links just in the way of that. That's pretty basic, right? You're in the way of me. Or he's already done it and he's trying to maintain his evil persona and links. He's the fly in the ointment. He's the monkey wrench in the gears. I got to kill this motherfucker. Gladys is just like inkling of hope. You may have no, take that away. Oh, hey, I'm going to give you a little bit. No, I'm going to go ahead and take that away. And you're just going to keep getting worse and worse. She goes, I'll kill you eventually, but right now, this is just too fun. GP (E): It's that whole going back to talk about my dad real quick in a weird coincidence. Jake (C): I'm kidding. GP (E): Please, go ahead. Chard (A): Yeah, I got to go. Gladys and it's fresh with me. It's a fresh thing with me. So it's still like, on the brain with her. I've been really impressed as I think Jake said it, where it was like this. You think it's just a puzzle game. GP and Jake both said it. It's a puzzle game. And I just never got into how interesting the puzzle aspect of it was. But there's so much more into it, and she's so fucking twisted. I remember fighting her at the end of the first one. It's like, this is crazy. All the shit's going down. Gladys is my winner for this round. Sins (D): And for me, one of the things I absolutely love is I went into that game thinking it was just a bear puzzle game. Just a bear puzzle game. And then it has this very cool backstory of what Gladys is doing to you. Chard (A): Anyway. All right, so Gladys, winner of the over Ganondorf. Perfect. All right, I'll try and speed these up because we're already 52 minutes in and we still got at least three more to go. All right, our next one ridley from Metroid series and Salvanis from the Warcraft series. Now, I know there is a lot of deep knowledge amongst this panel for at least one of these characters. I'll go first. So please have added gentlemen, give us. Jake (C): That Lord dump GP. GP (E): Well, okay, no, I don't want to retread things that everybody here clearly already knows and it would be insulting to the audience to go over too much. One of the things that I like so much about Ridley is actually tangentially to Glados. It's this idea of the unquantifiable entity. We don't exactly know the motivations right away. We just know there's, in the case of Ridley, this big, imposing figure that we have to figure out how to take down. And the fact that Ridley comes back several different times for the series, I don't know. And then, of course, the other person that you named who I mean, what. Sins (D): Needs to be said about Sylvanis? GP (E): What else can you say that hasn't already been said and documented in the annals of time? But that said, Ridley I always thought Ridley, aside from being kind of scary or whatever, just a really cool bad guy. And then the revelation of Ridley being in prime when you first see him and all that kind of thing and then you think you've taken him down with the space frigate and then just for him to I don't know, it was some cool shit and a dope looking bad guy. Chard (A): That's my I think you pronounced annals wrong. It's j annals. Sins (D): Analyze anals. GP (E): I thought you were going a different direction. Anyway, yeah, so that's me, of course. I'm kind of a Metroid fanboy, so yeah, that's where I fall between that one and. Wulff (B): Runner. GP (E): Sylvana. Chard (A): Windrunner was my maiden name. Sins (D): Ilvana. Wulff (B): Let me give you guys some backstory on Sylvanis and Ridley. GP (E): Please. Chard (A): You mean Kerrigan? Wulff (B): Yeah, I can do some backstory on Ridley, too. Actually, I did some reading about him today. Fantastic. I want to preface this by saying if we were counting expanded lore outside of the Games, ridley would win. Okay? Because Ridley, shown outside of the Games in the manga is one evil, soulless son of a bitch right? But once you limit your lore base to just what's in the video games, Sylvanis wins. And it's not entirely because she's just a bad person. Because she's not entirely a bad person. She was actually someone of great stature and honor who her soul was ripped out of her by the Lich King, and then he turned her into a monster. And she's been wrestling with that ever since. Her soul was split in two when that happened. When it's together, she is at least someone who is trying to make a better world for the people like her, the Forsaken, the undead that don't answer to the Lich King. Right? But when her soul is ripped apart, separated, the evil part is pure evil and commits genocide. Right? She burned down the world. GP (E): That's Sylvana. Chard (A): Sylvana Winchester. Wulff (B): She was willing to do whatever it took for other people's nefarious devices. Right. But when her soul is whole, she actually means well and does not get her hands all that dirty unless she absolutely has to for the greater good of the Forsaken first, the Hoard second. She's for her people first and then for her faction second. But that's still way up there, right? It's just the fact that her soul can be separated again makes her a scary villain because she will go to great darkness to achieve things. Chard (A): Remember that episode where Sylvanus and Dean were fighting the Lich King outside of the hotel? And then the yellow eyed Lich King, he throws the holy water and he says, hey, ass face, and then he throws on her, and then Sylvanus gets trapped. Her soul gets trapped in the cage with Satan or Lucifer. I remember that. Wulff (B): It wasn't as face. It was ass butt. Sins (D): Yeah. Wulff (B): Okay, you're a short ass, but. Jake (C): I want to build on what Wolf said. So the thing with Savannah so when we're making this list of villains, I think we had to put a Blizzard villain on here. The problem is a lot of Blizzard villains are very formulaic, right? Like, we joked. Carrigan. Right. There's also the lady who played Diablo in Diablo three. Kind of some similar personality traits, I guess. But Sylvanus, though, she's a long standing character. Going back to warcraft three and then World of Warcraft. Yes, in World of Warcraft Three, or sorry, Warcraft Three, she was the bad guy, but she's under the control of the Lich King Arthur when she freed herself in World Warcraft and built up a faction of basically the undead who opposed the Lich King. She's not necessarily a bad guy. Yes, she's looking for people and very Xenophobic, maybe you could say. But she's still looking out for people. So I don't think she's evil then. And there were recent expansion. This is why I want on the list. She becomes the bad guy in that expansion. I think she goes to, like, the afterlife. I don't know the warcraft lore, but she goes to the afterlife and makes a deal with the jailer, the demon. And part of the deal is that she becomes alive again. But she has to kill people to feed him souls. And that's why I felt she was, like, such a great villain. But by the end of that Expansion, she's redeemed her soul. Pieces that are split are burst together, and she feels remorse and guilt and all those things. And by the end of that Expansion, she's no longer a villain. She's trying to redeem herself. So that, I think, does not make her villain. Just like megas. I was all ready to say she was the big, the winner in this. But when I read that last bit of lore today at the end of the expansions, that's what happens to her. That's her fate, is she redeems herself. And she's out there in the world now trying to gain due penance to make up for the atrocities that she's committed. I think that turns around. And much like Meghan, I think she's maybe not the better villain in this case. Wulff (B): Yeah. Sins (D): All right. Chard (A): Sylvanus's origin story is going to premiere on The WB here real soon, too. Sins (D): So, are you saying that's two for Ridley and one for Sylvana? Jake (C): Ridley is not a great villain. Like, Ridley, to me, is super Metroid, and that's it, right? You shoot him in the intro and then you have a boss fight with him. GP (E): Sorry, did Ganondorf show up in a bunch of other properties I don't know about? Wulff (B): Other than Ridley? Chard (A): Mega Ridley? Holy shit. That thing is mega. Wulff (B): Ridley is not Ridley. Right, but it's made of himself to show how powerful he is. Jake (C): Oh, I thought it was him. Chard (A): That's a pretty evil trope. You know what? I'm going to make an evil robot of myself just to prove you how fucking evil I am. That seems pretty evil. Jake (C): That's the robot I'm delegating. Chard (A): I may not have seen that episode of Supernatural, but I'm telling you, that's pretty fucked up. Wulff (B): Two things we never actually learn of Ridley's personal motivations in the Games. Also, he just works for Mother brain. GP (E): Kind of a dick, non quantifiable entity. Why is this person destroying Henchmen then? Jake (C): Not a villain? Is that the argument? Sins (D): I guess. Wulff (B): Yeah. He's basically a cooper kid. Chard (A): What is it, two and two still? Sins (D): I'm going last. I haven't voted. Chard (A): Okay, well, you know what? Jake (C): I think I might go back to savannah has been a villain, right, in the past. I can't even see the name. Windrunner has had a villainous past. She may not be a villain currently, but she was. Ridley's just a henchman and has always been a henchman. He's just a schmuck. All right, you know what? It will flip me. I'm Sylvanis. Sins (D): Okay? So sylvana. Sylvanis. Ridley for GP. What are you charred last? Chard (A): Go. GP (E): No, real quick, please keep in mind to the two other guys who still need to vote here, if you vote Sylvanis, that means that Sylvanis will show up in another bracket and we're just going to have to talk about her some more. We all have to act like we know what's going on. Wulff (B): She's a better villain. Chard (A): No, I'm going, Ridley, because I've seen that episode of Supernatural and it wasn't very good. Sins (D): So now it's two and two, right? Wulff (B): Yes. GP (E): Okay, that's announced my retirement. Go ahead. Sins (D): I'm going, Sylvanus, because no werewolf is absolutely right. We talked about how these are specifically the video game villains versions and Ridley in the video game is just a boss. Sylvan just a boss and not the final boss. Chard (A): All right, that's fine. No, that's fine. You could be a bad guy for like, a segment and then be good again and still be a better villain than a person that's a villain all the time. That's fine. That seems to make perfect sense. GP (E): That's all it is. You're just a temporary asshole. That's all it is. Chard (A): That's fine. I'm sorry I didn't eat today. I was hangry. Best villain ever. Jake (C): Have a snicker. Chard (A): You're good. Sins (D): Except for I didn't eat today and I'm an asshole means I actually fed human lives to the Lich King. That's fine. Chard (A): I fucking slept 3 hours. I guess I'm the best villain today. Cool. GP (E): If somebody would just give don't worry. Chard (A): And my advanced DG, all my soul shards will come back together and I'll stop eating a dick. Cool. Your soul shard villain. GP (E): I love that. Chard (A): They're all in my kitchen next to my advanced GG shaker. Terrible pick. Let's move on. So what everybody's been waiting for? Let's go. We got two final fantasies back to back, but I'm going to throw you a curveball. Yeah, we're going to pick. Everybody likes Sephiroth for some reason is picked on here. I don't know why we went with Sephiroth. There's better villains than that, but not Canadian. So I guess I don't have to understand. Jake (C): I didn't make these brackets. It was a group. Chard (A): Of the gods. Section two. GP (E): Versus what? Chard (A): I love all the squids. It's just Kafka. I'm just fucking with you. It's Kafka. Kafka versus Sephirothko. This should be an easy one. Sins (D): Kafka, look. GP (E): Life, dreams, hope. Where do they come from? Where do they go? Such meaningless things. I'll destroy them all. Kafka for the win. Forever and always. Sins (D): Where did you go? Chard (A): Oh, must be exhausting. GP (E): We talked earlier about how one of the benchmarks of an interesting villain is a strong willed person who believes they're doing the right thing thanos Ultron. Just use some comic book tropes. The great thing about Kefka is Kefka doesn't really have the ideals of right or wrong. They are bat shit crazy in a similar way to the Joker, but to a very, very successful degree. Sins (D): We talked about how crazy is scarier than evil. Kafka is crazy when he man killed an entire kingdom. GP (E): Yes, the kingdom of Doma poisoning. And he becomes all powerful and in a way that's what he's after. But he doesn't really care about being powerful. He just cares about destroying the power is not the goal. Ending everything is the goal. The power is just the means for it. And. Sins (D): The power to destroy a world was in Kafka all along. Chard (A): Yeah. And all of us. Wulff (B): Yeah. GP (E): I don't know about all right, that's two for Kefka. Chard (A): How did Sephiroth even get a fucking. Wulff (B): Heyday, Sephiroth looks cool. Chard (A): Yeah. Jake (C): He is a big source. Wulff (B): An angry toddler. Chard (A): Yeah. Wulff (B): He is just mad about his life circumstance. Chard (A): Genetically enhanced toddler. Wulff (B): That's all it is. Whereas Kefka and we're going to bring it around. We're going to bring it around. Kefka is the joker. If Joker had magic. GP (E): Yeah, that's exactly right. That's a mic drop. Don't drop the mic. But that's right. Chard (A): There goes the thing is, somebody lied. GP (E): To Kefka about who his real mom is. And the reveal of that in the game, I think was one of the highlights of Final Fantasy Seven, because he believes he was an ancient, but turns out he wasn't. He ends up being descendant of this other horrible thing that came to Earth. So big twisty reveal there. You don't have to have a big twisty reveal with Kafka. He just did the thing he said he was going to do. Wulff (B): Yeah, he's just horrified. All he cares about is himself. That's it. Chard (A): I don't even think he cares about himself. I think he doesn't care about anything. Wulff (B): No, he cares about him. If he didn't care about himself, he wouldn't name things after him. He wouldn't say, I'm rebuilding the world in my image. Chard (A): He is, right? Jake (C): Yes. Wulff (B): An egomaniac to the umpteenth degree. Right. He wanted power, so he became a general for Emperor Gestalt. And then Gestalt was like, no, stop. And he was like, you're stupid. You don't know what you're talking about. I'm not stopping here. And so he kept going and kept going and kept going. And then he succeeded, and then he kept everybody down afterward. Even after he was a success, he still didn't care about anybody but himself. GP (E): Yeah. The closest thing Kepka ever cared about, in my opinion, in my estimation, is trying to get people to understand why nothing matters, and he doesn't really care that they understand it, but he still poses those questions. Why do people cling to life knowing it has to end, and that once you're dead, none of it will have meant anything? Like, that's? Some lofty ass shit for six year old me. And I'll say this. Even if Kafka was we'll say, Dr. Wiley, I would probably still vote for him based on nothing other than the Kafka Tower fight battle music fair. I'll stop now. I'll let everybody else talk. Chard (A): You're good. So is that three for Kafka? Wulff (B): I vote Kafka. Chard (A): All right. Sins (D): Jake, you don't matter. Jake (C): Yeah, I know. The story of my life. Chard (A): I'll just say. Jake (C): I thought when the brackets were randomly selected in this. I thought there'd be more of a fight and more balanced fight, but I guess I was wrong. I mean, the brackets fate was wrong. GP (E): That speaks to Kepka. I'm sorry. Would easily beat see how Gladys feels about it. Charge. Jake (C): So Sephiroth's greatest achievements is he burned a village down and he killed Eris. Wulff (B): Or Erith well, I mean nearly destroyed the planet with a giant comet, if you recall. Jake (C): Yeah, but then Kafka literally destroyed everything. GP (E): The weapons, the giant elemental weapon beasts. He took down Midgar, which is the source of all the horrible stuff. Wulff (B): Transformers. GP (E): Yeah. Sephiroth is a badass again, that doesn't. Chard (A): Take away from Sephora screamer off. Jake (C): I think I'm going to go back to what you said earlier. Crazy is scary. Like, crazy is terrifying. And Kefka is going to win. But I was hoping that Sephiroth would have more of an argument for him. But ultimately, I think kefa. This one. Wulff (B): I've always thought that Sephiroth was just like an adult child having a tantrum. GP (E): Scary or pure than a child. The quote from Bebop or crazy. Jake (C): No, but GP, when you mentioned the backstory in Sephiroth and where he came from, I completely forgotten. He thought he was an ancient. And there's a whole weird thing there that the story in fanface seven was always just confusing. I still never understood. I was hoping the remake would expand on that when they finally finish whatever, how many parts they do. Chard (A): We're going to leave out all that important stuff. GP (E): I think we took out Liquid, am I correct? I'll mention this real quick. The reason I thought Liquid Snake would have been interesting for this is because the whole premise to Metal Gear Solid is we have these two genetically almost identical twins who are manufactured, and then one is believing himself to be the inferior clone, and the other one superior, and it kind of goes back and forth. So then Solid Snake ends up winning. And the big kind of twisty thing there, because they do that in that series a lot, is that in fact, Solid Snake was the inferior one, and that theming. And that twist kind of speaks back to the only thing, in my opinion, that really makes Sephiroth super interesting is realizing or finding out eventually you're not what you thought you were. Wulff (B): You heard it here first, folks. Solid snake is Danny DeVito. Confirmed. GP (E): Anyway, all right, sorry. Chard (A): Thank you for that Kafka sweeps. Okay, I'll cut it short. I don't need to go on my die triad for that. You know how I feel about that. All right, we'll go into the next one. Robotnik eggman as depicted by Jim Carrey in the recent films and Dr. Wiley of the Mega man series. Sins (D): Gentlemen, can I start this one? Chard (A): You have your doctor's degrees, you have your eight years in college and in what do they do in practice? Residence. That's it. Resident, please don your white lab coats and. Vote. Sins (D): Okay, my vote. Chard (A): Sorry, you can go first. Sins (D): My vote. Who cares? Move on. Chard (A): Because we'll have a fucking awkward leg if that's the case. And Kefi will automatically win. Sins (D): Fine. Dr. Wiley. Because Mega Man I don't know, I always felt like eggman robotnik was like I always felt like he was a joke. Honestly, I always did. At least Wiley was. I don't know, he felt like robots should always be subservient. So let's go. Wiley wins. Wulff (B): They're both pretty egomaniacal and kind of inept. Let me say something here. How many eons of injustice is Dr. Wiley responsible for? Start with Mega man. He is responsible for the events of Mega Man X, which lead to the events of Mega Man Zero, which lead to the events of Mega Man ZX. All of that is Wiley's fault. GP (E): Yes, he even comes back as surges in my mind palace in X Two. I know there's a subreddit there, but you're exactly right. I don't want to step on you. I'll wait for my turn. Chard (A): Go ahead. GP (E): Sorry. Wulff (B): No, and even if you look at the Battle Network aspect, I'm pretty sure he's responsible for all of those six. And then it goes on to what? Star Force? Which is a spin off of Battle Network. So regardless of Mega Man timeline, you follow, wiley is responsible for everything. Maybe he didn't Wiley all along, but he did the most damage. GP (E): Yes. I'll kind of make my case here. The bad thing about Wiley is he failed a bunch. I can name at least eleven instances in which he did. With that said, whatever it was, he died. His final fuck you to the world was leaving the Zero virus like his last send off was apocalyptic levels of horseshit. But the pro for him being voted is, like you said, the longevity. His legacy of evil is top tier. So if you look at Robotnik, kind of a silly bad guy. I don't really fully understand the story there, why he hates Sonic. Here's the thing though. If you're going to say a pro about Robotnik, and this will lead into his con, he's actually faster than Sonic the Hedgehog. If you make it to the end of Sonic Two, as I recently did, there is a foot race that happens and it doesn't matter if you're running a Sonic or if you're in your little run like Naruto. Yeah, and Naruto runs all the way to the end. So he is faster than the enemy that he is trying to beat. And his enemy, Sonic, the only thing he's famous for is his speed. So why go through all the extra stuff? Why build the giant robots? Why do all that stuff when you can just say Sonic, I bet I can beat you, and we'll go our separate ways? Wulff (B): That he's got to think it's jewelry, right? GP (E): Yeah, I mean, can't blame that. Wulff (B): All he's really after is the the bling bling. GP (E): So, you know, that's robotics kind of. Chard (A): Cue the ring sound. Cue the ring sound. GP (E): Sinister, would you put the the ring sound in after you make the shiny thing? And anyway sure, and show me every step of the process. But the thing is I love you so much, Sinister. You're my best friend. I got to give it to Wiley for those reasons. Chard (A): Oh, man, there's so many inside jokes in this episode. I think you and I might have a similar answer being Sega kids at one point in our lives. Jake (C): Yeah, for me, when I look at this matchup, they do feel very similar in that they both fail a whole lot. And I'm not as familiar with the X lore and ZX and all that stuff. I only know the classic Mega Man games and Dr. Wiley there, where even when he's not the bad guy, he still kind of is, but he still loses every damn time, and he keeps making invention after invention, and they all fail to make a man. So I don't know, but it's also. GP (E): The sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry, I don't mean to keep interrupting. Jake (C): Yeah, not to say Robotnik is this supervillain. He also loses a Sonic every damn time. What does it say when the most brilliant mind in that franchise loses to a blue little fur ball? Every time, right? Like every single time. Yeah, he's faster than. Sins (D): All that means is that Sonic was the true villain all along. GP (E): Look, either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. Jake (C): So here's where I'm going to fall on this one, because I think both of them are inept villains. From my experience in the franchise, I played with them. They both lose all the time. Sins (D): I come back and come down. Jake (C): No, well, I care for the sake of the science in this bracket, in this tournament important, it's relevant. We're doing dedication here, dedication. We're professional at Press B. So, look, don't let me forget, my point comes down to shit, I lost it. GP (E): Well, while he's searching Sonic, which one are you picking? Chard (A): Robotnik or Wiley? Jake (C): Who's more recognizable as a bad guy? If you went to the

Join Gabe and Spencer as they roll through some random topics. From Teeth to hitchBOT, they talk about it all!

Last week, the European Commission launched what promises to be a global, multi-year debate on the regulation of artificial intelligence. Several years in development, the proposed rules would ban some uses of AI, regulate others, and establish significant penalties for those that fail to abide by the rules. European leaders believe the initiative will place them at the forefront of AI, borrowing from the data protection framework of seeking to export EU solutions to the rest of the world. Céline Castets-Renard is a colleague at the University of Ottawa, where she holds the University Research Chair on Accountable Artificial Intelligence in a Global World. She joins the Law Bytes podcast to discuss the EU plans, their implications for Canadian AI policy, and the road ahead for the regulation of artificial intelligence.

Tune into this episode of the Ask AI podcast where we sit down with Stéphane Létourneau, Executive Vice President at Mila, the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms, to discuss the growth of the research center over the years, its impact on the Canadian AI ecosystem, and where it's headed. To get all the show links, visit our website: askai.org

The Canadian startup landscape contains a whole series of terms that are unfamiliar to most people. Tell someone that you work out of an incubator and they could be forgiven for thinking that you are some kind of pediatric healthcare professional. But incubators, innovation hubs, accelerators, startup bootcamps, and technology labs are all essential parts of an ecosystem that has been created to manage the specific risks faced by Canadian startups at different stages of their growth. Artificial intelligence itself is a highly-specialized sector which not only carries particularly high technical and commercial risks but also unique ethical challenges, and so what we have seen is the emergence of a specialized ecosystem in Canada to support its specific needs. Organizations such as Toronto s Next AI, Montreal s MILA, and Edmonton s AMII all fit into this category. Check out this Ask AI interview featuring Joe Canavan, CEO of Next AI, one of Canadas premier accelerators, and Patricia Thaine, CEO of Private AI (and member of the Next AI program) that are using AI to make leading-edge privacy tools easier for developers to incorporate into their product designs. If you have questions about this episode or if you would like to send a question that could appear on a future episode, please send us an email to info@askai.org or tweet us at askaiorg.

On this week’s show, we spoke with Paul Kruszewski, CEO & Founder @ Wrnch. Paul Kruszewski is a Canadian AI technologist and serial entrepreneur known for his work in artificial intelligence and computer graphics. He is the founder and CEO of wrnch, an AI and computer vision software engineering company based in Montreal, Quebec. He has founded three AI startups, including wrnch, specializing in crowd simulation, NPC behaviours, and human pose estimation. His projects have gradually gotten more complex as he's moved from developing AI software capable of understanding many people doing simple tasks to fewer people engaged in more complex tasks to perfect knowledge of individual body language.   On the show, we spoke about: How he started his third company and wanting to make a big impact Their work on seeing and understanding people Some of their amazing work covered in the NY Times How the current environment is accelerating the digitization of the world   It was such a pleasure to speak with Paul. He shared some great wisdom yet was very humble in this conversation. I learned a ton and I hope that you enjoy the conversation!     Let us know what you think. What types of guests would like to see on the show? What topics interest you the most? Send me your thoughts at nectar@thepnr.com   Subscribe | iTunes | Google Play |Spotify | YouTube | Stitcher | Breaker  

The second part of our conversation with Canadian AI specialists where we delve further into the policy and ethics issues, as well as how the business side of AI is growing in Canada with government support.

A live audience recording in which we discuss artificial intelligence with two knowledgeable Canadian AI specialists. In this first part, we talk about things that AI can do and liability issues associated with AI’s actions. More interestingly, we discuss policy issues.

What would you do with $125 million dollars and a mandate to advance artificial intelligence research and policy in Canada? If you’re Dr.Elissa Strome, the answer is A LOT. This episode of the Ask AI podcast features an interview with Dr. Elissa Strome, the head of CIFAR's Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy. Listen how CIFAR is helping to attract nurture research talent and discover the aspects of AI most personally exciting to this Canadian AI thought leader. Stream, download, and subscribe to the Ask AI Podcast here: http://askai.org/podcast This interview and a galaxy of resources are also available in the Ask AI Chabot (just type “podcast”): http://askai.org/askai-chatbot This episode was sponsored by Electric Brain https://www.electricbrain.io EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS: Learn how CIFAR is helping to reverse brain drain in Canada’s artificial intelligence research: 2 mins 37 sec Learn about the new “AI in Society Program” which looks at the policy, social, legal, and ethical implications of AI: 4 min 18 sec Get the history of CIFAR which has been supporting AI research since 1983 (and supported Geoffrey Hinton’s early research): 6 mins 15 sec Discover what excites Dr.Strome most about artificial intelligence in Canada: 11 mins 42 sec How CIFAR is cooperating with the Montreal Declaration for the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence: 19 mins 25 sec EPISODE LINKS: Dr.Elissa Strome LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elissa-strome-21996134/ CIFAR website: https://www.cifar.ca/ CIFAR Twitter: https://twitter.com/CIFAR_News CIFAR LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/canadian-institute-for-advanced-research SPONSORS: This episode was sponsored by Electric Brain https://www.electricbrain.io For sponsorship, content, and volunteering opportunities, please email info@askai.org EPISODE CREDITS: Senior Producer: Mike Letourneau Associate Producer: Francesca Awotundun Interview recorded by: Robyn Edgar Executive Producer: Chris McLellan

The first episode of the Ask AI Podcast kicks off in an exclusive interview with Kathryn Hume, VP of Product and Strategy at Integrate.ai and Venture Partner at ffVC.  A leading voice on AI in North America, Kathryn is incredibly adept at explaining techniques and concepts within artificial intelligence (including "explainability" itself). Co-hosts Jaxson Khan (Nudge.ai) and Heather Evans (Government of Ontario) lead this overview of the technologies, challenges, and myths in AI. Full of practical real-world insights, this episode is the perfect introduction to the Canadian AI sector for students, professionals, and Canadians from all walks of life.  Our listeners are always invited to get engaged with the Ask AI podcast. Please email your questions on artificial intelligence and workplace automation to podcast@askai.org. For sponsorship, content, and volunteering opportunities, please email info@askai.org.

  Welcome back to another episode of Biotechnology Focus radio! I am your host – Michelle Currie – here to give you the rundown on the Canadian biotech scene. So, as many of you know, we are coming up to a very busy and exciting time of the year, as BIO is just around the corner! And this isn’t just any regular BIO, this year marks the 25th anniversary in its inaugural location – Boston. It’s four days chalked full of keynotes, receptions and networking opportunities that will leave you trying to catch your breath at the end of the week. But if that doesn’t take your breath away, perhaps the performance by Diana Ross might at the largest BIO event of the year!  But bringing the focus back to Canada, a lot has been going on in the last few weeks that is worth mentioning. Keep listening to find out!  +++++  In a world where artificial intelligence has begun to incorporate itself in everything from life sciences to cars, it should come as no surprise that South Korean tech giant, Samsung, is jumping in with both feet opening AI Centres around the globe, one of which just opened in Canada’s most bustling city – Toronto.  The opening of the Toronto AI Centre comes on the heels of the company’s global announcement of two additional and newly established AI Centres in Cambridge, UK and Moscow, Russia as part of a new venture to tap into and contribute to the booming AI industry. The Toronto Centre will work in partnership with the company’s Silicon Valley team to pioneer AI research and development for the region.  Toronto has a rich history of innovation and discovery and is an ideal location for a vast amount of companies to call home. With access to key talent, Toronto is an idyllic place for research and development for speech recognition, where machine-learning technology was applied many years before it was widely applied to other fields. The vision is that the Samsung AI Centre will now serve a significant role in the advancement of AI with a focus on language understanding and computer vision technologies that will ultimately reduce the friction between the user and the device/service, whether it be mobile phones, TVs, appliances, or cars.  Located in Toronto’s downtown core at MaRS Discovery District, the new Samsung AI Centre is a part of a network of research Centres dedicated to research and development in the field of AI. The Centre is the second Samsung AI Centre to be established in North America, with the other in Mountain View, California. The North America AI Centres are led by senior vice president, Dr. Larry Heck, a renowned expert in machine learning for spoken and text language processing, who also co-leads the expansion of Samsung’s AI Centres around the globe.  The Toronto centre will be led by Dr. Sven Dickinson, newly appointed as the head of the Toronto lab, professor on leave and past chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Dickinson is an expert in computer vision technologies, especially in the field of object recognition. He will play an integral part in Samsung’s research of core AI technologies that entail language, vision and other multi-modal interactions.  As one of the world’s largest urban innovation hubs, MaRS Discovery district supports promising innovators and ventures tackling key challenges in the sectors of cleantech, finance & commerce, and work & learning. In addition, and importantly, the vast MaRS community fosters cross-disciplinary collaboration which drives breakthrough discoveries and new solution for global audiences.  This announcement compliments earlier 2018 news of plans to launch additional AI centres in North America. Dr. Darin Graham will lead the opening of new labs in Canada as the head of Samsung’s Canadian AI Operations. Graham also helped create the Vector Institute – the renowned Canadian AI research institute, as a member of the founding team. The opening of AI centres in Canada will allow Samsung to expand its outpost for industry collaboration and talent recruitment in the major AI hubs in North America.  To date, Samsung has had remarkable success in leveraging Canada’s unique R&D talents for global impact. The Company’s Vancouver-based R&D centre has contributed to many in-market innovations and more than doubled its workforce, since opening with over 100 employees. With the addition of the AI centre in Toronto, the company plans to increase the R&D in Canada from current 100 to 200 in the near future. Additional developments and talent in Canada have been recognized through Samsung Electronics Canada subsidiaries, AdGear Technologies Inc. in Montreal and SigMast Communications Inc. in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  +++++  When it comes to what drugs get funded, how do provinces and the Canadian health care system decide which drugs to fund and which drugs not to? A team of University of Alberta researchers found that when a jury is made up of a cross-section of society and given proper information and context, people are willing to fund drugs and treatments for costly ultra-rare diseases, even at the expense of treatments for larger populations.  An example would be a rare genetic disorder that robs men of sight by the age of 40. It affects one person in 50,000 and does not yet have a cure. But it does have a very expensive, unproven gene therapy that holds the promise of delaying the inevitable.  Tania Stafinski, a researcher in the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health and director of the Health Technology and Policy Unity says, “The fallacy is that these kinds of decisions are based on the greatest good for the greatest number. It’s partly greatest need, partly what the gain looks like, partly the severity of the disease and partly the population affected. It is an interaction of all these things, but not whether it is utilitarian.”  To better understand the social values around spending on new technologies and commercially undeveloped “orphan drugs, Stafinski convened a pair of citizen juries that roughly matched the sociodemographic profile of people in and around Edmonton.  Just like in a legal setting, Stafinski called witnesses that represented government, health-care providers and patients, and led the juries through different trade-off exercises and scenarios. For the most part, specific drugs and technologies were avoided to rid the study of any bias and allow jurors to focus more on the characteristics of the people and what could be achieved.  The jury was put through seven trade-off exercises focusing on things that might matter to them, such as cost, the condition of the patient, what kind of technology is involved, how much improvement could be expected, and even caregiver burden.  Despite the stakes, uncertainties around whether the technology would be able to fully deliver on its claims didn’t play a significant role in decision-making. Even in cases, such as the gene therapy for vision disorder, where there was a risk the technology would fail, Stafinski found that jurors valued the information and innovation component of the research.  Final decisions on what technologies and drugs to fund are currently made by a provincial review committee, guided by a pan-Canadian evidence review process that leaves it up to the provinces to take into account social and ethical implications.  She says there are examples in the Canadian health-care system where a small gain for hundreds of thousands of people is implicitly sacrificed to give sufficient medical gains to a small group. One example is administering the flu vaccine—inhaled versus injected.  Stafinski explains that although a large segment of society may prefer to have the inhaled version of the flu vaccine, with a few exceptions, policy-makers aren’t spending the extra money for the inhaled vaccination, choosing instead to fund medications such as those that improve the quality of life for the 4,000 Canadians who suffer from cystic fibrosis.  +++++  A new study from The Ottawa Hospital is the first of its kind. The study suggests that treatment for erectile dysfunction coupled with a flu vaccine might be the solution to eradicating cancer cells after surgery. The study, published in OncoImmunology, shows that this unconventional strategy can reduce the spread of cancer by more than 90 percent in a mouse model. It is now being evaluated in a world-first clinical trial.  Senior author Dr. Rebecca Auer, surgical oncologist and head of cancer research at The Ottawa Hospital and associate professor at the University of Ottawa says, “Surgery is very effective in removing solid tumours. However, we’re now realizing that, tragically, surgery can also suppress the immune system in a way that makes it easier for any remaining cancer cells to persist and spread to other organs. Our research suggests that combining erectile dysfunction drugs with the flu vaccine may be able to block this phenomenon and help prevent cancer from coming back after surgery.”  The current study investigated sildenafil (Viagra), tadalafil (Cialis) and an inactivated influenza vaccine (Agriflu) in a mouse model that mimics the spread of cancer (metastasis) after surgery. The researchers evaluated these treatments by counting the number of metastases in mouse lungs. They found an average of:  37 metastases with cancer cells alone  129 metastases with cancer cells and surgery  24 metastases with cancer cells, surgery and one of the erectile dysfunction drugs  11 metastases with cancer cells, surgery, one of the erectile dysfunction drugs and the flu vaccine  Dr. Auer is now leading the first clinical trial in the world of an erectile dysfunction drug (tadalafil) and the flu vaccine in people with cancer. It will involve 24 patients at The Ottawa Hospital undergoing abdominal cancer surgery. This trial is designed to evaluate safety and look for changes in the immune system. If successful, larger trials could look at possible benefits to patients.  The researchers are excited about this research because it suggests that two safe and relatively inexpensive therapies may be able to solve a big problem in cancer. If confirmed in clinical trials, this could become the first therapy to address the immune problems caused by cancer surgery.  Using a variety of mouse and human models, Dr. Auer’s team has also made progress in understanding how erectile dysfunction drugs and the flu vaccine affect cancer after surgery. Normally, immune cells called natural killer (NK) cells play a significant role in killing metastatic cancer cells. But surgery causes another kind of immune cell, called a myeloid derived suppressor cell (MDSC), to block the NK cells. Dr. Auer’s team has found that erectile dysfunction drugs block these MDSCs, which allows the NK cells to do their job fighting cancer. The flu vaccine further stimulates the NK cells.  Dr. Auer stresses that although erectile dysfunction drugs and the flu vaccine are widely available, people with cancer should not self-medicate. Any changes in medication should be discussed with an oncologist.  +++++  Some of the hottest areas in biotech that are emerging and driving growth and investment are in the field of regenerative medicine and cell and gene therapy. There have been several acquisitions over the past year that really got the ball rolling with hopes to advance immunotherapies. Despite the curative potential, these therapies come with a hefty price tag and complex challenges. With the first immunotherapies to win regulatory approval in the United States, CCRM, a leader in developing and commercializing cell and gene therapies and regenerative medicine technologies, hosted a panel to discuss how we can bring these therapies to Canada.  The panel represented a wealth of knowledge covering regulatory and hands on approaches to the subject. It was moderated by Michael May, president and CEO of CCRM, and consisted of Donna Wall, MD, section head, Blood and Marrow Transplant/Cell Therapy Program, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids); Justin Shakespeare, executive director, Oncology Business Unit, Amgen; Patrick Bedford, senior manager, Clinical Translation and Regulatory Affairs, CCRM; and Aaron Dulgar-Tulloch, PhD, director of Bridge, GE Healthcare Cell Therapy.  There have been many decades of work in people trying variations of immunotherapy approaches and not getting a clinical signal. It was after researchers figured out T-cell biology and that they needed to bring not only the patients’ T-cells right up against the tumour cell but also that they had to get the T-cell excited and activated to go into cell division.  Donna Wall explains, “The first successful patient was only about six years ago. No question that the treatment can cure, as long as you take six years as to how long to treat a number of patients who otherwise have untreatable leukemia. That’s the first type of patients that we have when we have a new treatment. We take the patients where we have nothing else to offer. A number of patients do not make it to the treatment because it takes a while to engineer the cells; a number of patients may not have a response to the treatment; and a number of them who go into remission may end up relapsing. But for the first time, there are many who are responding positively to treatment and are not showing signs of leukemia.”  This is still in a very early-stage as of yet. It is not a one-and-done type of treatment. In order for this to work, the most common CAR-T product removes the cancer cells as well as the patient’s B-cells lifelong – giving them an immune deficiency. It is complex and comes with its own set of issues that may put up to 40 per cent of patients into intensive care for side effects of the CAR-T treatment. The treatment should not be taken lightly and will not be handed out over the counter.  The cost of the treatment is another factor entirely. Like anything new, cost is initially high but is expected to come down over time. It is a huge cost for a company to invest in and build the infrastructure that needs to be actualised as well as looking at regulatory costs. If the treatment becomes more mainstream, its costs pose another issue, as the health care system has not been designed to handle a large influx of big-ticket cases.  Patrick Bedford, CCRM, states, “There’s value in when you want to pay for something, but can you actually pay for it today is the real question. The number of drugs over $50,000 since a decade ago has gone from two to 20, and the drugs targeting orphan or rare diseases has all skyrocketed. There might not be a lot of people in each of these disease populations, but there are a lot of disease populations. So, the idea of affordability is really important. There are some new discussions right now about how to pay for these, like money back, or paying for performance type things, or rather than paying it all at once, pay three, four years later. There are a lot of ideas right now about how to afford the population if we choose they are worth the value to pay for.”  These are living drugs and therapeutics that have a very complex process on the manufacturing side as well as the rest of the supply chain. Each treatment batch is tailored to the patient. Many treatments start as autologous, but there are groups that are currently working on making this into more of an allogeneic process.  Aaron Dulgar-Tulloch explains, “Everyone wants to go from autologous to an allogeneic model. Every commercial entity would prefer to be in that allogeneic scenario because it is much better realised, there’s simplification in the supply chain, logistics, and the scale of benefits. We’re already starting to see groups trying to turn autologous into an allogeneic process. I think we will see more groups coming in with successful approaches to a more allogeneic or classical model.”  However, the playing field is changing as more treatments are reaching approval on a shorter timeline and with less clinical data. Even though much of that data presented to the regulators have been enormously successful, it is not typically a fast-moving field. This leaves the regulators to navigate through the treatments and do so in a receptive and responsible manner.  Since these therapies are still so new right now, it has put a particular strain, even on a global scale, to find individuals with expertise in scale up and industrial manufacturing coupled with biological cellular experience.  Dulgar-Tulloch explains that Canada in particular is feeling the pain from that, in that they don’t have a lot of the manufacturing infrastructure in Canada to pull from, and what Canada has is still heavily engaged in the bioprocess space.   CCRM has a centre devoted to improving the cell manufacturing process and is attracting international attention from companies who are looking for CCRM and GE’s expertise in process development. This work also feeds into the Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) facility that CCRM is building that provides space for therapeutics companies to run phase I and II clinical trials.  What it all boils down to when it comes to markets like Canada, is that timing is often regulatory-driven and balancing considerations as to where manufacturing is and how to support the local market, with timing as an implication on the pricing perspective. Canada needs to leverage its strengths on the clinical side so that we extract value from manufacturing and ultimately deliver these products to patients for commercialization.  +++++  Well that wraps up another episode of Biotechnology Focus radio! As always, we have all the stories online and in full to fish through at your leisure at biotechnologyfocus.ca. If you have a story idea or wish to make a comment, please email me at press@promotivemedia.ca. But until the next time, enjoy the spring weather and for those attending the BIO International Convention this year, good luck and enjoy! From my desk to yours – this is Michelle Currie.     

What do Canadian AI startups need in order to compete on a global scale? Are we doing enough to support their lead in AI development? Amanda Lang and Jodie Wallis speak with Mohamed Musbah, head of product at Maluuba, a startup he founded that was acquired by Microsoft in 2017. They also speak with Peter Misek, partner at BDC's IT Venture Fund, and John Ruffolo, CEO of OMERS Ventures.

Canada is a world leader in Artificial Intelligence research, and development. Produced by Antica Productions this five part series, hosted by Amanda Lang, and Jodie Wallis from Accenture, explores the Canadian AI ecosystem in academia, business and the policy surrounding it. This podcast launches on February 20th, 2018.

Welcome to another episode of Biotechnology Focus radio. This week we are discussing some of the recent mergers and acquisitions that have been rocking the headlines, some recently awarded grants and how machines are moving fast. I am your host Michelle Currie, here to bring you the lowdown on the Canadian biotech scene.  +++++  Celgene, a biotech giant, has merged with and acquired Juno Therapeutics and their leading blockbuster drug cancer therapy in one of their largest deals ever. For a total of $9 billion, Celgene will pay $87 a share in cash for those not already owned by this corporation.  Celgene and Juno have been collaborating since June 2015 under which the two companies would leverage T cell therapeutic strategies to develop treatments for patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases with an initial focus on CAR-T and TCR technologies. In April 2016, Celgene exercised its option to develop and commercialize the Juno CD19 program outside of North America and China.  Juno develops cell-based cancer immunotherapies based on chimeric antigen receptor and high-affinity T cell (CAR-T cell) receptor technologies to genetically engineer T cells to recognize and kill cancer. Several product candidates have shown compelling clinical responses in clinical trials in refractory leukemia and lymphoma conducted to date.  This acquisition will position Celgene to become a preeminent cellular immunotherapy company with a platform to be at the forefront of future advances. JCAR017, a pivotal stage asset, with an emerging favorable profile in DLBCL, is expected to add approximately $3 billion in peak sales and significantly strengthen Celgene’s lymphoma portfolio, and JCARH125 will enhance Celgene’s campaign against BCMA (B-cell maturation antigen), a key target in multiple myeloma.  +++++  The global pharma industry is undergoing a dramatic transition from a quest for blockbusters to the design of a precision medicine based drug design. Artificial intelligence is one of the most prominent elements that has been adopted as part of the transition from a fully integrated pharmaceutical company model of drug design to extensive interaction with smaller innovative R&D companies as well as academic institutions.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the activity devoted to making machines intelligent, and intelligence is that quality that enables an entity to function appropriately and with foresight in its environment (definition proposed by Nils J. Nillson, Stanford U.). Even though there are numerous definitions for AI, this one fits nicely into the goal of using machine learning for improving the rate of success in the design of novel and cost-effective therapeutics.  One of the primary reasons that AI has such a great potential in drug development is that there is a huge amount of health data available right now in the public health system. Clinical trials’ data, electronic medical records (EMR), genetic profiles and much more is the wealth representing the notion of BIG DATA in healthcare. The main challenge regarding the processing of big data is the need to process it in a meaningful and cost-effective fashion. That is why training a machine to fulfill the task becomes so attractive. Selecting and adjusting the right algorithms is the first essential step but once it is in place, training machines to find optimal patterns between the structure of “druggable molecules” and their optimal activity is within reach.  Canada has established a leadership position in training of machines to learn how to perform complex tasks, in a relatively short period of time. Based on recent commitments to the space, it is expected that we will witness in the foreseeable future designs of novel and much more specific therapeutics with higher potency and lesser side effects. The prospects are quite encouraging in light of the shift global pharma industry is adopting towards precision medicine. That shift will rely on sifting through patients’ medical records. Canadian AI machines are learning fast and are expected to become a key player in advancing academic concepts into standard and streamlined processes and organizations. In Ontario, the University of Toronto has emerged as a world-leading hub for research and entrepreneurship in this area. A potent combination of long-standing academic research in conjunction with the adoption of machine learning methodologies have already proven to be game-changing opportunities. Interactive approaches to computer science and medical research, combined with emerging best in class entrepreneurship programming and training is already yielding some fascinating fruits in the area of AI for drug discovery.  Companies like Structura Bio are taking the complex computational challenge of reducing noisy images from cryo-electron microscopes into readable highly accurate 3D structures of proteins and are doing what used to take a server room filled with computers a week, in a matter of seconds. Similarly, Phenomic AI (a recently incorporated UTEST company) uses a technique called deep learning to analyze data from high-throughput phenomic screens to analyze cell and tissue phenotypes in microscopy data with incredible accuracy. It holds out the potential for eliminating human intervention in the assessment of all that data. In some cases, companies like Deep Genomics and Atomwise are going all the way by leveraging their respective AI technologies to become drug discovery engines themselves. Our awareness of the impact of the AI revolution in drug discovery is already enormous and we’re only at the beginning of its adoption cycle. Future advances in Canada will be buoyed further by strong academic and institutional foundations that have been put in place to assist Canada in sustaining this advantage. The Vector Institute, as an example, was established in 2017 in partnership with Canada’s largest companies and the Federal and Provincial Government’s to attract and retain world-leading research talent and to promote cutting-edge research in the field.  Recently, partnerships have been established between the MaRS Innovation research healthcare ecosystem (UHN, Sickkids, Sunnybrook) with global players in the space of machine learning based drug design and developments. Partnerships with Schrödinger and Evotec have been established to capture the enormous potential of “fishing in the pond” of EMR’s rich source of unraveling the tissue/cellular architecture as a baseline for the discovery of novel disease targets, which thereby establishes a mechanism for better drugs.  The field of AI in the service of medical research is still in its infancy, but the initial avalanche of results is already starting to give us an idea of the great potential that machine learning can offer to those embarking on advancing drug development. Reducing screening times, aiding new drug candidates and finding the most effective drugs for specific diseases at a speed that humans cannot achieve is compelling, and we believe that AI will increasingly become part of the medical landscape. Once hurdles such as data standardized collection and storage as well as data privacy concerned are addressed, it is expected that we will witness an exponential inclination in the implementation of machine learning as a powerful tool in the design of more potent drugs with lesser side-effects. The FDA and Health Canada are encouraging pharmaceutical companies to join the choir.  To conclude, rephrasing from Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Institute (CNBC, May 2017), “The potential of artificial intelligence has probably the biggest impact of any type of technology on healthcare.”  +++++  Two of Canada’s largest producers of cannabis have struck a deal after months of negotiations and a hostile takeover bid. The board of directors and the special committee of the CanniMed board have agreed to support a new offer made by Aurora for the acquisition of all of the issued and outstanding shares of CanniMed not owned by Aurora.   Terry Booth, the CEO of Aurora Cannabis says, “We are very pleased to have come to terms with CanniMed on this powerful strategic combination that will establish a best-in-class cannabis company with operations across Canada and around the world.”   The new offer for CanniMed is approximately $1.1 billion based on Aurora’s implied share price of $12.65. The maximum amount of cash available under the amended offer will be $140 million, and the number of Aurora shares to be issued will be between approximately 72 million and 84 million. Assuming maximum cash elections, each CanniMed shareholder would receive $5.70 in cash and 2.9493 Aurora shares.  Despite CanniMed filing a law suit against Aurora earlier this month, this deal provides the optimum outcome for both companies.  +++++  The Ottawa Hospital has been awarded $12.7 million in the most recent project grant competition from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The grant funding will be going to sixteen research groups at the hospital who are in affiliation with the University of Ottawa. This represents an enormous success rate of 30 per cent, doubling the national average.  The new funding will provide researchers the much-needed capital to delve deeper into their studies ranging on a plethora of subjects – anywhere from oncolytic viruses as immunotherapy treatments, using a holistic approach to improving the quality of life for the homeless, to understanding the role of liquid metabolism in the brain.  “I’m delighted that our researchers have once again achieved such a high success rate,” says Dr. Duncan Stewart, executive vice president of research at The Ottawa Hospital and professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa. “These new research projects have the potential to redefine the future of health-care, both at home and around the world.”  The Ottawa Hospital has scored above the national average in CIHR grant competitions for the past several years, including 2015, 2016, and 2017. This research centre shows great promise and innovative studies for the years ahead.  For the summaries of all the projects please visit biotechnologyfocus.ca   +++++  Well that wraps up another episode of Biotechnology Focus radio. If you have any questions, comments or story ideas, please contact us at press@promotivemedia.ca, and don’t forget to follow us on our twitter handle @BiotechFocus. From my desk to yours – this is Michelle Currie.    

This week on CanCon, the team evaluates the merits of a Canadian AI supercluster, the perils of unchecked AI, and the value of innovation infrastructure spending. Canadian Content music clip (under fair dealing): “A conversation between two robots” by The Superfantastics Ad music: Catmosphere - Candy-Coloured Sky, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA Attribution-Share Alike license.

The AI Canada Pod is back!‎ Michael von Herff welcomes regular Colin Dhillon and special guest, Sportsnet's James Sharman. The discuss Klopp's first weeks in charge, the rise of parity in the Premier League and what it means for LFC's prospects this season and beyond, as well as casting a glance at the fixtures ahead. Where do you think LFC will be at the turn of the year?  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.