Dear reader,

I confess I like it when readers get in touch to roast us for being beholden to one ideology or another. In response to a Q&A with some developer, one reader accuses us of being slobbering capitalists. Another is convinced that our feature on the rental crisis means we’re bleeding-heart socialists. I interpret such opposing critiques as a good sign. Jon Stewart once described the staff of The Daily Show as neither blue nor red but “passionately opposed to bullshit.” Now that’s a manifesto we can get behind.

Debate and dissent are essential to what we do at Toronto Life. My favourite verbal fisticuffs starts in midsummer, with our search for the year’s most influential Torontonian. This year, we had three compelling options. One was Tiff Macklem, the governor of the Bank of Canada. He had juiced the key lending rate to a ghastly five per cent. By the morning of July 13, anyone with a variable rate was sweating profusely. In terms of influence, the guy with his hand on everyone’s wallet makes for a convincing case.

Olivia Chow was another contender. She had marked a historic achievement by becoming Toronto’s first non-white mayor. For a city in the throes of an affordability crisis, the ascent of a left-leaning candidate made plenty of sense. Now she’ll be graded on what she can do to effect the changes she’s promised.

Ultimately, both were eclipsed by Geoffrey Hinton. On May 2, he announced he was leaving Google with an urgent message. Artificial intelligence, of which he is widely known as the godfather, had spread so fast that Hinton feared what it meant for humanity. His klaxon wasn’t without reputational risk, but our species was in the crosshairs, and we needed intervention before it was too late. Within days, his warning had reached the halls of power in Ottawa, London and Washington. Trudeau took him out for dinner. Elon Musk got him on the phone and talked so long that Hinton had to beg off. It’s becoming clear that AI will be one of the most consequential developments of our time. That the man who nurtured it is the one now railing against it is a Gothic turn worthy of Mary Shelley. Paradoxically, Hinton’s genius and courage made him our runaway choice for most influential Torontonian—and yet we can only hope he’s wrong.

The Influentials 2023

Look at 2023 from just about any angle and a pattern emerges (it’s the economy, stupid). Renters fought to cap rent increases, workers fought for pay hikes, and politicians fought to keep the cost of living from pushing everyone and everything beyond the brink. But no one else had the impact of the person in our number-one spot: a giant of artificial intelligence who changed his mind about AI—and now urgently wants to change everyone else’s. Our annual ranking of the people who are changing the world as we know it.