Podcasts about inquiry canada

Is AI the latest chapter in our long history of creating an all-knowing God? AI ethicist Christopher DiCarlo certainly suspects it is. In his new book "Building a God: The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence and the Race to Control It, DiCarlo argues that we are creating AI systems with godlike capabilities that will eventually exceed all human intelligence through their ability to make unprecedented inferences and connections. Like so many other self-styled ethicists, DiCarlo emphasizes the urgent need to establish ethical guardrails and principles for AI development. He expresses both hope for AI's potential benefits, particularly in medicine, while warning about the risks of losing control of super intelligent systems that might, one day, develop their own ethical frameworks. Given that AI development is currently largely controlled by profit-driven companies and shaped by geopolitical competition rather than ethical considerations, DiCarlo advocates for raising public awareness and establishing robust international oversight bodies (similar to the IAEA for nuclear weapons) to govern AI development. He argues that AI's potential for systemic manipulation and control makes it potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons, as it wouldn't require human intervention for the technology to destroy humanity. Christopher is a Senior Researcher at Convergence Analysis, an AI consultancy. He teaches in the Department of Biology at the University of Toronto and The Life Institute at Toronto Metropolitan University and is a past Visiting Research Scholar at Harvard University. He is the founder of Critical Thinking Solutions, the Ethics Chair for the Canadian Mental Health Association, a lifetime member of Humanist Canada, and an Expert Advisor for the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Christopher has published three books, including an international best-seller. He has won several awards including TV Ontario's Big Ideas Best Lecturer in Ontario Award and Canada's Humanist of the Year.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Bettianne Hedges of Humanist Canada hosts Leslie Rosenblood from Centre for Inquiry Canada alongside Teale Phelps Bondaroff and Ian Bushfield of the BC Humanist Association, who will discuss the many ways Canada still tangibly privileges religion and its institutions over similar non-theistic organizations. Just a few policy choices cost Canadians billions - yes, with a "b" - each and every year. You can learn more by reading: Cost of Religion in Canada from CFIC A Public Good from BCHA Follow the Money from BCHA An Extra Burden from BCHA Recorded March 19, 2024

Calls continue in Alberta for a public inquiry. Nobody knows how many children will be suffering permanent kidney damage and yes that means dialysis and eventually for some, a place on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. More than 300 children in childcare now affected by E-Coli, linked to a cockroach infested kitchen with multiple infractions, cited by multiple inspections but one that was never shut down, one that serviced multiple day care centres. No wonder there are calls for an inquiry, where a real judge has real power to conduct a serious investigation. Alberta's children should not have their kidneys endangered by the scrambled eggs of Right Wing Politics. Canada is in a cold war with India. Prime Minister Trudeau has confirmed that Canadian authorities suspect the government of India was directly involved in the assassination of a Sikh leader in Surrey, BC. India's Prime Minister Modi is angry with Trudeau, has profusely denied the allegation and responded by expelling a Canadian diplomat. One of Modi's biggest boosters is Stephen Harper the former Canadian PM who is now the leader of an organization made up right wing leaders around the world including India's Modi, Hungary's Victor Orban and hear this clearly, Canada's Pierre Poilievre. If Canada's opposition leaders wants credibility on the int'l stage, he should get off the IDU stage that Harper stands on. Pierre Poilievre needs to tear up the Conservative Party's membership in Stephen Harper's IDU. Inflation refuses to leave this nation. Gasoline costs are going higher - not lower and so Statistics Canada annual inflation rate rose to four per cent last month, up from 3.3 per cent in July - the inflation accelerating again because of the price at the pump. The genius behind Tesla and Space X never seems like a genius when it comes to Twitter, now officially known as X. Elon Musk, who said recently that he will block users from blocking users- and no, it hasn't happened- now says he will charge a monthly fee for all users. And no, that won't happen either, because if it does, X will be deleted by the free market. And if it is, Elon Musk's ego hot tub will be drained by the hand that paid more than 44 Billion dollars to have it.

On this very special broadcast, we are bringing you some highlights of the National Citizens Inquiry: Canada's Response to COVID-19. The hearings have so far been conducted in six cities with two more coming by the middle of this month. I should also point out in the interests of full transparency that I myself engaged in presenting a viewpoint to the Inquiry when it was in Winnipeg one month ago, in spite of some condemnation by notable individuals and virtually no coverage by mainstream press. I should also alert you that some listeners may find messaging against the common beliefs about COVID treatment across the board to be extremely troubling. I urge listeners to express discretion before proceeding further with the broadcast. Speakers include Emergency physician Dr Charles Hoffe, Former mainstream media representative Rodney Palmer, Saskatoon resident Marjaleena Repo, and Trucker Dan Hartman. Also an interview with NCI spokesperson Michelle Leduc Catlin.

The Bill Kelly Show Podcast: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to close out the Public Order Emergencies Commission hearings today, when he'll testify about his decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to clear out the “Freedom Convoy” protests earlier this year. The hearings have been underway for weeks and have heard from dozens of witnesses as part of its duty to analyze Trudeau's justification for invoking the controversial legislation earlier this year. GUEST: Muhammad Ali, Senior Consultant for Crestview Strategies - David Detomasi joined the show to discuss an op-ed piece that he wrote in the Conversation called “Canada should focus on building ties with countries that share its values — but tread carefully”. GUEST: Dr. David Detomasi, Associate Professor and Distinguished Faculty Fellow In International Business with Queen's University - The King, as the Leafs and two generations of their fans knew him so well, is gone.  Ravaged by the onset of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, Salming died at 71 on Thursday in Sweden, the club announced in a joint statement with his family.  GUEST: Mike Stubbs, Host of London Live on 980 CFPL and London Knights play-by-play announcer 

Judy Trinh, CTV News; Emilie Taman, lawyer; Kirsten Hillman, Canada's Ambassador to the U.S.; Greg MacEachern, Proof Strategies; Adrienne Batra, The Toronto Sun; Anne McGrath, NDP National Director; Annie Bergeron-Oliver, CTV News; Rachel Aiello, CTV News; Susan Delacourt, the Toronto Star; and Greg Weston, Earnscliffe Strategies.

14:04 | Cardus' Brian Dijkema and the Centre for Inquiry Canada's Leslie Rosenblood discuss how houses of worship are exempt from paying taxes. The discussion explores pros and cons of the how churches are funded as charities and if change is needed.  1:05:18 | Enoch Cree Nation member Lorelei Mullings shares her motivations for protesting at the site of the former Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton, AB since late June 2021. She addresses the need to stop construction on a condo development and a search for unmarked graves to begin. 1:50:14 | An exploration of our Question of Week results on equalization, presented by Y Station.  2:02:02 | Positive Reflections courtesy of our friends Kuby Energy.

If you’ve been following the current state of affairs south of the border, you know that there are a lot of people living in false reality bubbles built on a mound of conspiracy theories. Social media companies are finally taking at least tacit steps to stop the flood of misinformation, but it’s becoming clear that the real fight against clashing realities is in our hands, and we all need to know how to fight back.  Now being the smug Canadians that we are, we look at these developments in the United States and shake our head sternly, but we know that we have our own truthers here in Canada. Consider the anti-mask group The Line who held a rally last weekend up the road in Woodstock, and another that happened a few weeks ago in Aylmer, it’s likely that every one of us knows someone in our lives, or in our social media circles, who have fallen down misinformation rabbit holes. So what can we do? Presented here in one place are two experts on the effects of misinformation. First we will hear from Christopher DiCarlo who is a philosopher, educator, and author who teaches at the University of Toronto, Ryerson University in Toronto, and is an Expert Advisor for the Centre for Inquiry Canada. From DiCarlo, we will hear about why people find themselves so susceptible to misinformation, and why we should thinking about the spread of misinformation like a drug addiction.  After that, we will hear from Maya Goldenberg, who is an associate professor in the College of Arts at the University of Guelph. Among other things, she studies vaccine hesitancy, or what has become more commonly known as anti-vaxxing. Goldenberg will tell us the long, unfortunate history of vaccine hesitancy, and how it has spun off into the new area of medical skepticism we more commonly know as anti-masking.  So let's attack this land of the truthers in this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast! For further reading on this subject there’s an article on Psychology Today from May called “How Should We Respond to People Who Spread Conspiracy Theories?” For methods on how you can identify misinformation, there’s a page on Ryerson University’s library website that gives you tips, and WNYC’s On the Media show has a Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook that can give you further suggestions, including a list of problematic sites, which, thankfully, Guelph Politico is not on. The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify. Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

In this episode, I have Dr. Christopher DiCarlo to talk about critical thinking. What tools can we use, how does the human mind work and do we have the mental capacity to evolve our communication skills. And then we Dive in Christophers ABCDEF blueprint to hyper accelerator your critical thinking tools sets  Watch Full video podcast here  Guest Dr. Christopher DiCarlo  He is a philosopher, educator, and author. He often teaches in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Toronto (in Scarborough). He is also a lifetime member of Humanist Canada and an Expert Advisor for the Centre for Inquiry Canada. Book: https://amzn.to/35vh2Nd https://www.criticalthinkingsolutions.ca   He has been invited to speak at numerous national and international conferences and written many scholarly papers ranging from bioethics to cognitive evolution. His book entitled: How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Critical Thinker’s Guide to Asking the Right Questions is currently in its fifth printing and is a best-seller in Canada and the U.S. His latest book: Six Steps to Better Thinking: How to Disagree and Get Along was released by Friesen Press and is available worldwide.

In this episode of AmeerApproved I sit down with Dr. Christopher DiCarlo and dive in deep on does free will exists. How can we use Evolutionary psychology to better understand human nature and are human pre-programmed and or do we have a choice in our actions. Much of the conversation will also focus on the concept of free will and the freedom (or lack thereof) that humans have in making ethical decisions.    Dr. Christopher DiCarlo is a philosopher, educator, and author. He often teaches in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Toronto (in Scarborough). He is also a lifetime member of Humanist Canada and an Expert Advisor for the Centre for Inquiry Canada.  https://www.criticalthinkingsolutions.ca https://www.sixstepstobetterthinking.com/the-book He has been invited to speak at numerous national and international conferences and written many scholarly papers ranging from bioethics to cognitive evolution. His book entitled: How to Become a Really Good Pain in the Ass: A Critical Thinker’s Guide to Asking the Right Questions is currently in its fifth printing and is a best-seller in Canada and the U.S. His latest book: Six Steps to Better Thinking: How to Disagree and Get Along was released by Friesen Press and is available world-wide.   He is a past Visiting Research Scholar at Harvard University in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences: Department of Anthropology and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Here, he conducted research for two major papers entitled The Comparative Brain: The Evolution of Human Reasoning and The Evolution of Religion: Why Many Need to Believe in Deities, Demons, and the Unseen.   He is currently engaged in writing his latest book, So You Think You Can Think? Tools for Intelligent Conversations and Getting Along. ​ In April 2008 he was awarded TV Ontario’s Big Ideas Best Lecturer in Ontario Award. In August 2008 he was honored with the Canadian Humanist of the Year Award from the Humanist Association of Canada. In September 2008 he was awarded the UOIT Complementary Faculty Teaching Award. ​ Dr. DiCarlo is the Principal and Founder of Critical Thinking Solutions, a consulting business for individuals, corporations, and not-for-profits in both the private and public sectors. He is also the developer of the first Pilot Project in Canada to introduce Universal Critical Thinking skills into the Ontario Public High School curriculum which has begun in the Upper Grand District School Board. This has led to other Ontario School Boards adopting Dr. DiCarlo’s Critical Thinking program for their High School curricula.  

On episode six of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan reads a very compelling listener email from a UFO witness, who in 1980 at the age of fourteen, watched in awe as a large triangular craft hovered over her vehicle near Man Lake in Alberta, Canada. As she stared upward, she felt as though whatever controlled the craft was also controlling her thoughts, and somehow knew what she was feeling and thinking.  The notion of a psychic aspect to UFO sightings bleeds over into this week's discussion with guest, Susan Demeter-St. Clair. Ryan and Susan discuss several cases that she's researched where not only psychic and telepathic communications may have been involved, but that elements of high strangeness and the paranormal may, in fact, have more to do with the UFO question than we truly give it credit for. And how do these aspects affect the witness or experiencer during and after the event? It was a fascinating discussion of these often overlooked aspects of UFO reports that certainly raise new questions. Guest Bio: Susan Demeter-St. Clair is a professional research assistant, author, editor, and PSI experimenter. Her research interests include individual and institutional responses to anomalies and exceptional human experiences, and how they interact and enact change within groups and large institutions, such as the military. Her life took on the framework of UFO experience after an encounter in 1990, and she considers anomaly studies to be her true life’s work. She has established both ParaResearchers of Ontario, and Paranormal Studies and Inquiry Canada as online educational resources for those wishing to explore the subject of anomalous events. Susan has conducted field research on unusual light phenomena and lectured on this subject at the Ontario Institute for Studies & Education, University of Toronto. She is currently collaborating with Eric Ouellet, Ph.D. of the Canadian Forces College on new approaches to UFO studies through the lenses of scientific Parapsychology. At the time of this publication, Susan is conducting a series of independent experiments based in part on the work of the late mathematician, Dr. A.R.G Owen and psychotherapist Dr. Joel Whitton that will be the focus of a book on UFOs, social PSI, and Magick. More info can be found on her website: www.susanstclair.com - - -  New Intro & Outro Voiceover by Jaime Lamchick. Check out her work at: www.jaimelamchick.com Personal stories or guest and topics discussions can be sent to Sprague@somewhereintheskies.com Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Ryan's book is available in paperback & ebook HERE

This week’s podcast was a fun one to record. Taped in front of a live enthusiastic and thoughtful audience this past December in downtown Toronto. I chatted with two magicians, on stage and post show, James Alan and Mike Close. The food was good, the magic terrific and the conversation engaging. Listen is as we talk about magic, wonder and reason in the 21st century.BiographyJames Alan is a magician based in Toronto. He is the producer of James Alan’s Magic Tonight, a live dinner-theatre-style magic show performed in Downtown Toronto, Mississauga, and Pickering. He has produced two acclaimed one-man shows;The Uncertainty Project and Lies, Damn Lies & Magic/Tricks. Check out some of thereviews from Magic Tonight.Michael Close is a magician, musician. He is a world-renowned magic inventor and consultant. He is the author of numerous magic publications including Closely Guarded Secrets, the Workers series and a joke collection, That Reminds Me. He is currently the editor of MUM, the journal of the Society of American Magicians.The podcast was taped in front of a live audience at the Winter Solstice Celebration for the Centre for Inquiry Canada, a think tank and community outreach organization advancing reason, science, free expression and secular values. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

We interview Justin Trottier, the acting executive director of the Center for Inquiry Canada.