ΑΙhub.org
 

Yoshua Bengio and Gary Marcus debate AI


by
07 January 2020



share this:

Left: Yoshua Bengio, Professor at Université de Montréal. Right: Gary Marcus, Professor Emeritus at New York University

In late December, the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA) hosted a two-hour debate between Gary Marcus and Yoshua Bengio.

There was common ground as the two discussed creating hybrid AI systems (where deep learning methods are used in tandem with other AI methods). Differences arose when the debate moved onto terminology and the histories of the various methodologies.

You can watch the full debate by clicking on the video link below. It includes a brief presentation by each researcher, discussion between the two and questions from the audience.

Gary Marcus is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at New York University and was Founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, a machine learning company. His research focuses on natural and artificial intelligence.

Yoshua Bengio is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the Université de Montréal and scientific director of MILA. In 2018 he was a co-recipient of the Turing Award for his work in deep learning.




Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub.
Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub.

            AIhub is supported by:



Subscribe to AIhub newsletter on substack



Related posts :

A principled approach for data bias mitigation

  18 Mar 2026
Find out more about work presented at AIES 2025 which proposes a new way to measure data bias, along with a mitigation algorithm with mathematical guarantees.

An AI image generator for non-English speakers

  17 Mar 2026
"Translations lose the nuances of language and culture, because many words lack good English equivalents."

AI and Theory of Mind: an interview with Nitay Alon

  16 Mar 2026
Find out more about how Theory of Mind plays out in deceptive environments, multi-agents systems, the interdisciplinary nature of this field, when to use Theory of Mind, and when not to, and more.
coffee corner

AIhub coffee corner: AI, kids, and the future – “generation AI”

  13 Mar 2026
The AIhub coffee corner captures the musings of AI experts over a short conversation.

AI chatbots can effectively sway voters – in either direction

  12 Mar 2026
A short interaction with a chatbot can meaningfully shift a voter’s opinion about a presidential candidate or proposed policy.

Studying the properties of large language models: an interview with Maxime Meyer

  11 Mar 2026
What happens when you increase the prompt length in a LLM? In the latest interview in our AAAI Doctoral Consortium series, we sat down with Maxime, a PhD student in Singapore.

What the Moltbook experiment is teaching us about AI

An experimental social media platform where only AI bots can post reveals surprising lessons about artificial intelligence behaviour and safety.

The malleable mind: context accumulation drives LLM’s belief drift

  09 Mar 2026
LLMs change their "beliefs" over time, depending on the data they are given.



AIhub is supported by:







Subscribe to AIhub newsletter on substack




 















©2026.02 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence