Montreal still is a AI powerhouse. Most of the same people who were here ten years ago still are, and still working on the same research topics, just with less flashy PR.
Yeah if anything I think the ecosystem is healthier. More established corporations have moved in, and the startups that pop up are usually more legitimate.
(Though I think MILA is kind of losing some of its lustre, both in terms of research output and quality. I guess it might just be that my friends there are mostly doing RL or cognitive research, which I both find to be pretty... unpractical? They give me a 1980s AI dead-end vibes, but that's obviously purely personal biais)
Interesting. Not disagreeing with you, but just out of curiosity, are there any other reasons why you believe research quality has declined at Mila specifically, outside the broader trend that progress in deep learning is starting to slow, and besides your opinion that RL/CogSci research are dead ends?
(Though I think MILA is kind of losing some of its lustre, both in terms of research output and quality. I guess it might just be that my friends there are mostly doing RL or cognitive research, which I both find to be pretty... unpractical? They give me a 1980s AI dead-end vibes, but that's obviously purely personal biais)