Vancouver AI

09/29/2026

Tomorrow night, Vancouver AI takes a federal AI transparency consultation back into the room where the answers came from.

Sara Taherzadeh walks through what BC told Ottawa. Peter Van Garderen shows how twenty people worked through five federal questions in public. Jonny Williams of the Squamish Nation opens the night.

If AI makes a decision about your life, you should be able to question it, reach a human, and get a bad call fixed.

Wednesday, September 30
Doors 6 PM. Program 7:15 PM.
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre

Come curious.

Vancouver AI Meetup #33, September 30, 6–10 PM at the Space Centre. Peter Van Garderen and Sara Taherzadeh share BC + AI’s response to Canada’s AI transparency consultation. Bring your questions.

09/24/2026

09/20/2026

Data centres built at any cost will lose the public.

Taleeb Noormohamed named the tradeoffs directly: ratepayers, environmental impact, long-term infrastructure, and whether communities can see a benefit they actually trust. Social licence disappears when governments and companies treat those concerns like an obstacle.

Build the clean infrastructure. Show the receipts. Let the public argue with real numbers.



https://youtu.be/TrFhKXyJJ7M

09/03/2026

Here's the part of the AI story nobody sells you: the people using it hardest are burning out first. There's now a first medical diagnosis of AI burnout, and productivity peaks at one to three tools, then crashes.

Kevin Friel's prescription at Film Club was punk rock: DIY venues, no gatekeepers, community over churn.

More tools is not more art. Sometimes the most advanced move is less.

Kevin Friel unpacks four weeks of AI film chaos—new models, new edi...

09/03/2026

Dave Olson said “f**k stats, make art” in 2008, when everybody was chasing a million hits.

Most of those million-hit sites disappeared. Some became giant conglomerates. The handmade work survived in flat files, shoeboxes, postcards, and the homes of people who cared enough to keep it.

Platforms count attention. Humans keep artifacts.

What have you made that deserves to outlive the dashboard?



https://youtu.be/lSsFz0umIng

09/03/2026

If British Columbia is going to build AI infrastructure, British Columbians need a real say in what gets built, where it lands, and who benefits.

Kris Krüg put the choice plainly at Vancouver AI: data centres, public accountability, and a West Coast AI centre built around creative industries and responsible technology. The community has grown enough to carry political weight, and we intend to use it.

What would a West Coast AI centre have to prove before it earned your trust?



https://youtu.be/zk56Y7CPVfU

09/02/2026

Five people had already raised their hands to bring robots before the full Futureproof program was even announced.

Add the software that makes those robots move, two full program days, and an AI Film Festival closing party led by Kevin Friel. Put the whole thing under the planetarium dome.

That is the flavour of October 28 to 30 in Vancouver: embodied AI, creative practice, hard questions, and enough weirdness to keep the future human.

What would you bring into the room?



https://youtu.be/zk56Y7CPVfU

09/02/2026

Thirty-one monthly meetups. Twelve subgroups. Three hundred BC + AI members.

That drumbeat created enough trust, talent, and beautiful trouble to build something bigger: Futureproof Festival of AI, October 28 to 30 at the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre.

Kris Krüg spent twenty years photographing TED, SXSW, Fashion Week, and rooms full of people trying to make culture move. Futureproof is the annual expression of what this monthly community has been learning in public.

What would make an AI gathering worth three full days of your life?



https://youtu.be/zk56Y7CPVfU

09/01/2026

A youth centre on Main Street is helping shape what AI education looks like in Canada.

Anthonia Ogundele and the crew at Ethọ́s Lab give Black and Indigenous youth a place to build, question, and experiment with these tools on their own terms. Vancouver AI members have been showing up as mentors in their weekend AI lab too.

The youth are the point. The technology is there to help them make more of what is already theirs.

Who else should be learning from this model?



https://youtu.be/zk56Y7CPVfU

09/01/2026

Three years ago, AI kicked over the table of Kris Krüg's photography and design career.

He went looking for a room where artists, engineers, teachers, founders, skeptics, and weirdos could say two true things at once: I'm excited. I'm scared.

That room did not exist, so we built Vancouver AI. Cross-disciplinary by design. Curious without being gullible. Still figuring this s**t out together.

What kind of room did you need badly enough to build yourself?



https://youtu.be/zk56Y7CPVfU