On Tuesday night, Quebec’s Mila Artificial Intelligence Institute and a neighboring AI company in Montreal’s Mile-Ex district were targets of vandalism, according to police reports. The incidents involved smashing windows at the AI research institute and ServiceNow software company. Graffiti with the message “Burn the Data Centers” was found painted on the building.
The discovery was made by police officers on patrol around 11:45 p.m. on Tuesday, leading to the arrest of a 25-year-old woman near the scene for questioning. The police suspect a group of approximately 10 individuals to be behind the vandalism.
These acts of vandalism occurred amidst growing global concerns about the rapid advancements in AI technology. Recently, Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, an AI company, publicly announced his resignation and raised alarms about the potential dangers of AI development. His statements sparked a widespread debate on the pace of technological progress.
In response to Coxon’s concerns, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, advocated for a more cautious approach to AI development in the interest of public safety. Several industry leaders, including Sam Altman from OpenAI, Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind, and Elon Musk, voiced their support for Amodei’s stance.
Michael Cant, an AI consultant, expressed disappointment upon seeing the vandalism at the Mila building in Montreal, emphasizing the organization’s commitment to AI safety. The incident occurred as the All In AI and tech summit kicked off in the city.
The summit, set to host over 6,500 AI experts and industry stakeholders at Palais des congrès, will feature prominent speakers such as Yoshua Bengio, the founder of Mila, and Valérie Bécaert, the vice president of AI research at ServiceNow. Additionally, Mila announced a new partnership with the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) aimed at advancing agentic AI research, AI safety, and trustworthy systems for technology transfer into the Canadian and German economies. The memorandum of understanding between the research centers will be signed during the summit, with the presence of Canada’s minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, Evan Solomon, and his German counterpart, Karsten Wildberger.