Disruptors

We’re all using AI more, but how many of us actually trust it?

AI is now used by more than a billion people worldwide, but trust in these systems is far from settled. In this episode of Disruptors, John Stackhouse speaks with Yoshua Bengio, Turing Award winner, founder of Mila, and Co-President and Scientific Director of LawZero, about whether AI is getting safer or more dangerous as it becomes more powerful, more agentic, and more embedded in work, public systems, and everyday life. They explore LawZero’s mission to build non-agentic, trustworthy AI, including Scientist AI, and why Bengio believes the next generation of artificial intelligence should be designed to reason, evaluate, and supervise rather than independently pursue goals. John is also joined by Jaxson Khan, Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, to discuss AI sovereignty, the risks of dependence on foreign cloud and compute infrastructure, and what Canada should be thinking about as it prepares its next national AI strategy. This is a conversation about AI safety, Canadian AI sovereignty, trustworthy AI, and who should shape the systems that are increasingly shaping us. Yoshua Bengio’s work through LawZero offers one of the clearest Canadian answers yet.

Show notes links

Episode guests and organizations
Yoshua Bengio
LawZero
Jaxson Khan
Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Referenced reading
RBC Thought Leadership
RBC Thought Leadership on LinkedIn
Sovereign by Design: Strategic Options for Canadian AI Sovereignty
Bridging the Imagination Gap: How Canadian companies can become global leaders in AI adoption

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As Disruptors: The Canada Project earns a Webby Award nomination, we’re re-releasing the season finale, “Building Canada: A new generation takes charge.” 

How does Canada actually build faster, smarter and at greater scale?

In this episode, John Stackhouse speaks with Daniel Debow and Lucy Hargreaves of Build Canada about what it will take for Canada to move from big ideas to real execution. 

After a season exploring defence tech in Newfoundland, sovereign launch capacity in Atlantic Canada, critical minerals and refining in Quebec, AI-ready power in Alberta, and trusted data infrastructure in Ontario, this finale brings those threads together in one conversation about nation-building, productivity, infrastructure, innovation, and Canadian competitiveness.

If you’ve been following the series, please support Disruptors in the Webby People’s Voice Awards.  Vote.webbyawards.com

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Trust at Scale: Lessons from Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the internet’s most-used public resources, but what makes people trust it in an era shaped by AI, misinformation and institutional decline? On this episode of Disruptors, John Stackhouse speaks with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales about how Wikipedia built trust, why neutrality still matters, and what generative AI gets wrong. They discuss community governance, social media, local journalism, online accountability, young people’s information habits and what businesses can learn from a platform designed around public trust.

In this episode you’ll understand:

Why Wikipedia still earns trust when so much of the internet does not.

What neutrality looks like in a polarized digital environment.

Why AI makes trusted human systems more important, not less.

 

RBC – Thought Leadership

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Canada’s Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics delivered unforgettable moments — and also a hard signal: podium success is increasingly won upstream, through systems, sport science, and technology.

In a world where competitors treat sport science as infrastructure, Canada is trying to win with a thinner pipeline and a funding model that can push costs onto athletes. That’s not just unfair — it’s strategically risky.

In our latest Disruptors episode, host John Stackhouse sits down with David Shoemaker, CEO and Secretary General of the Canadian Olympic Committee, and Jennifer Heil, Olympic champion (Turin 2006 gold; Vancouver 2010 silver) and Chef de Mission for Team Canada at Milano Cortina 2026.

This episode unpacks what “modernization” means.  It’s the same logic that drives performance in business: small gains compound when the system is designed to learn.

You’ll also hear why talent identification matters and how RBC Training Ground points to what a scalable pipeline can look like when measurement meets opportunity.

Home-field advantage: How to scale Canadian sport tech primer
RBC Training Ground
RBC Thought Leadership

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Quantum computing is accelerating — and putting today’s encryption on a clock. John Stackhouse goes inside Xanadu’s Toronto lab with Christian Weedbrook to meet Aurora, a networked quantum computer built to push scale in the right direction and speaks with Photonic’s Dr. Stephanie Simmons about “harvest now, decrypt later,” fault-tolerant quantum, and why every organization needs a post-quantum cryptography (PQC) transition plan.

It’s not all doom and gloom. Simmons also lays out what quantum could unlock as it scales: new possibilities in materials, chemistry, and discovery that are moving from theory toward real-world impact.

In this episode:

Inside Xanadu: Aurora and what “networked quantum” looks like in the real world

What “fault-tolerant” quantum means — and why it matters

“Harvest now, decrypt later” and the trust implications for institutions

Post-quantum cryptography (PQC): where leaders should start

Quantum upside: materials, chemistry, and faster discovery

Read:

Quantum Explained

RBC – Thought Leadership 

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