On November 6, 2026, BIFOLD welcomed Prof. Yoshua Bengio, recipient of the 2018 A.M. Turing Award and the most cited living scientist across all fields. BIFOLD Co-Director Prof. Dr. Klaus-Robert Müller welcomed him to the institute.
The visit included a tour of the institute. BIFOLD researchers Gregor Lied, Laure Ciernik, and Arnab Phani gave insights into their current work.
Later that day, Bengio gave the public lecture "A Critical Pathway to Safe-by-Design AI" at TU Berlin, organized by TU Berlin and BIFOLD. He addressed the risks of autonomous AI agents, the challenges of AI alignment, that is, ensuring AI systems pursue the goals humans intend, and new approaches to safer AI. One of them is Scientist AI: systems designed to make reliable predictions without pursuing hidden goals of their own. "What I'm worried about is competence in the service of something really bad," Bengio said.
BIFOLD thanks Prof. Bengio for his visit and the open exchange with its researchers.
About Yoshua Bengio
Bengio is a professor at Université de Montréal and founded Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. He is Co-President and Scientific Director of LawZero, a nonprofit that develops safe-by-design AI systems as a global public good. He also co-chairs the UN's Independent International Scientific Panel on AI and chairs the International AI Safety Report.
Public Lecture: Critical Pathway to Safe-by-Design AI
Lecture held at TU Berlin.
Watch the full lecture
