Let's gather and discuss AI 2040: Plan A, the new scenario from the AI Futures Project (the team behind AI 2027). Unlike AI 2027, it's a recommendation rather than a prediction: an international deal in which the US and China agree in 2029 to avoid a race to superintelligence, all AI research becomes publicly transparent, capabilities scale slowly through the human range, and the world pauses at top-human-expert level before deliberately building superintelligence in 2040 enforced by verification schemes and "mutually assured compute destruction" (China's datacenters get built in Canada, of all places). We'll discuss whether the plan is coherent, whether it's achievable, whether it's even desirable, and what we'd do instead.
The full scenario is long. If you can't read the whole thing (And there’s a lot to read), read the main narrative through 2030 plus the summary and Scott's introduction below, and see if you can at least get the main gist of AI 2040. I’ve partitioned up the main reading into 45min-1hour blocks that you can sign up and claim here. If the sheet is full then share a section with someone.
Sign-up to read
Readings
AI 2040: Plan A (main scenario; skim the supplements that interest you)
Introducing Plan A (Scott Alexander)
If you prefer podcast format (I haven’t watched through it, but I expect it will be a good summary)
Supplemental Readings
AI 2027 (the predicted scenario, for contrast)
Introduction for and Reactions to Plan A (Zvi's roundup of objections and responses)
Comparing Possible Plans (Plans A/B/C/D/S head-to-head)
AI 2040 FAQ
Plan A: Suggestions for Further Work
Richard Ngo’s Critique
Toronto's tech scene moves fast. But the stories that really matter - the pivots, the hard calls, the lessons learned the hard way - rarely get told. At our monthly Together Toronto series, we bring founders onto the stage to share what it looks like to build a company here. Honest behind-the-scenes conversations from entrepreneurs who've taken bold bets, hit unexpected walls, and figured out how to keep moving. What to expect: 🎤 Raw founder stories with real frameworks you can apply 🤝 A room full of builders, investors, and operators 💡 Conversations that challenge how you think about your own work Whether you're launching your first thing, scaling a team, or just curious about how Toronto's best companies get built - there's a seat here for you. Who you'll hear from: Kevin Callahan, Co-founder & CEO, Uniblock - One API for every blockchain. Raised $2.3M and left a comfortable tech career to build it. Avril Sun, Co-founder & CEO, Succession AI - AI-powered M&A for founder-led businesses. She started it after her family's 28-year-old restaurant chain wound down for nothing, because nobody knew what it was worth. Azam Khan, Co-founder & CEO, Trax - Building code compliance software after a research career in simulation and design. Ujwal Arkalgud, Co-founder & CEO, Orbit - Currency exposure and attribution analytics for multi-entity finance teams. Backed by Diagram and Sagard. This isn't just an event. It's your community. Come ready to listen, connect, and meet the people building what's next. 📣 More ways to get engaged as a startup founder Pitch Feedback from VCs (5–6 PM) Early-stage founder? Get your pitch in front of investors before doors open. We're running a dedicated 5–6 PM session where group of founders pitch and get live feedback from VCs. This runs as a separate add-on to the main event. Spots are limited to pitch live and goes to startup founders only. Apply to attend above! Early-stage startups - want a booth? We're opening a handful of booth spaces i
A night for founders, builders, and CX innovators to show what they're working on. Demo your product, prototype, or experiment. Could be a technical build, an AI-powered solution, or a CX innovation you're testing. Share it, get real feedback, and meet others pushing customer experience forward. Want to demo? We're opening up 5-minute demo slots for anyone building something worth showing. Apply to present! Whether you're demoing or watching, come ready to talk shop. Hosted at New Ambition office. Ambition is a learning-first social network: a place where what you're curious about drives connection and your greatest ambitions become easier to reach.
Every frontier model runs on minerals. Behind the GPUs, the servers, the cooling systems and the power infrastructure that make up a data centre sit gallium, germanium, rare earths, copper, tungsten and a dozen other inputs whose mining and refining are concentrated in a small number of countries. Countries like China, that have weaponized that dominance, restricting exports of gallium, germanium, graphite and rare earth magnets, and each time targeting a material critical to AI. Demonstrating how a supply chain chokepoint becomes a tool of statecraft. What exactly is AI infrastructure, which minerals does it depend on, and where is control over those minerals heading? In this talk, Noah Chaikin works through the AI value chain from the mine to data centre and applies a foresight lens to what he finds. He argues that mapping critical mineral exposure across that chain is the first step toward securing North American supply, and points to Pax Silica, the US-led initiative to build a trusted AI supply chain among allies, as a live example of governments now trying to do exactly that. Drawing on his work at Kearney Foresight in geopolitical statecraft and his research on Canadian rare earth supply chains, he closes with scenarios for how mining, refining and AI investment could converge over the next decade, and what that could mean for Canada. Please treat everyone with respect. Harassment and discrimination are not tolerated. If something comes up, reach us at feedback@trajectorylabs.org or find any staff member on site.
Important Notes: Register on the AICamp is required for admission. RSVP on meetup is turned off. Description: Welcome to the AI meetup in Toronto. Join us for deep dive tech talks on AI, GenAI, LLMs and Agent, hands-on experiences on code labs, workshops, and networking with speakers and fellow developers. Tech Talk : Validate Your Code at the Speed You Generate Speaker: Ryan Hamilton (Senior Developer at CircleCI) Abstract: In this talk, I will walk through what the data actually says about the AI-era SDLC: what broke, why, and what a new infrastructure pattern looks like. I will cover the validation bottleneck in concrete terms (including a new metric, the Merge Efficiency Ratio), explain why running AI agents through legacy CI creates compounding cost and latency penalties, and discuss the emerging solution stack — Chunk sidecars for inner-loop microbuilds, a CLI rebuilt for agent-first feedback, and an MCP server that brings CI context directly into your coding agent. Speakers/Topics: Stay tuned as we are updating speakers and schedules. If you have a keen interest in speaking to our community, we invite you to submit topics for consideration: Submit Topics Sponsors: We are actively seeking sponsors to support AI developers community. Whether it is by offering venue spaces, providing food, or cash sponsorship. Sponsors will not only speak at the meetups, receive prominent recognition, but also gain exposure to our extensive membership base of 10,000+ AI developers in Toronto or 500K+ worldwide.
Join us for a Toronto meetup of creative coders! This will be a venue to get to know each other and see what's going on in the community. We'll have a space downtown and some food available. We're partnering with InterAccess, a gallery, educational facility, production studio, festival, and registered charity dedicated to new media and emerging practices in art and technology! If you've got a project you've worked on in the past that you're proud of, we'd love to see it and for you to walk us through what went into it. If you're currently working on something or investigating some new ideas and feel like sharing, this would be a great time discuss your process so far! If you haven't done anything yet but are interested in creative coding, we'd love to see what works have inspired you. Sign up here if you're interested in speaking! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MsbtdvTGMNT75lqq4lnxydY4TczStAOZE1Ap8mQJKeM What is creative code? Creative coding refers to anything with an artistic component that uses code as a medium. We welcome artists who use code (for visuals, audio, poetry, or whatever else), designers, animators, toolmakers, researchers, or just enjoyers and people looking to learn more! Location: InterAccess, at 32 Lisgar St. Join our discord if you want to talk to everyone before/after the event, or have any suggestions for things you'd like to see or do! https://discord.gg/ux9txXPsdJ