University of Toronto

The Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society (SRI) is the University of Toronto's flagship institute for research at the intersection of advanced AI and society. Established in 2019 following a historic $100 million donation from Gerald Schwartz and Heather Reisman — the largest gift in U of T's history — SRI was created to ensure that powerful technologies like AI are responsible, inclusive, and beneficial to all. The institute operates across two interconnected streams: a research stream led by scholars in computer science, philosophy, political science, economics, and law; and a solutions stream that translates frontier research into actionable policy and governance outcomes. Its research community spans 150+ scholars drawn from 34 faculties and 20 academic disciplines across U of T's three campuses. SRI's current director is David Lie, a world-leading computer security expert from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Geoffrey Hinton, University Professor Emeritus and 2024 Nobel Laureate in Physics, serves as Strategic Advisor and leads the Office of Geoffrey Hinton at SRI. Roger Grosse and David Duvenaud — both associate professors of computer science and researchers at Anthropic — hold Schwartz Reisman Chairs in Technology and Society. Sheila McIlraith serves as Associate Director and Research Lead, focusing on human-compatible AI. Key programs and initiatives include a $5.6 million NSERC-funded project on end-to-end AI pipeline safety led by David Lie; the Embedded Ethics Education Initiative (E3I), which integrates ethics into CS courses reaching thousands of students annually; the AI Trust Working Group examining human-AI trust dynamics; and a graduate fellowship program that has awarded over $1 million since 2020. SRI also hosts the annual Absolutely Interdisciplinary conference and a regular seminar series. The institute's 2025–2028 strategic plan centers on three pillars: safe and secure AI systems (including interpretability, pluralistic alignment, and governance of highly capable systems), data integrity (privacy, provenance, and misinformation), and governance and social reordering (how AI reshapes institutions, labor, and culture). Good Ventures provided a US$700,000 gift to support Hinton's AI safety advocacy work at SRI. SRI is housed within the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, a major 750,000-square-foot complex at U of T.