<p>​This month’s Vancouver AI Meetup is anchored by a keynote from <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://www.alexandrasamuel.com/"><strong>Alexandra Samuel</strong>,</a> creator of the <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="http://meandviv.ca/"><em>Me + Viv</em> podcast</a> and longtime observer of how technology reshapes work, meaning, and human behavior.</p><p><strong>​<em>"When your best friend is a robot" </em>by Alexandra Samuel</strong></p><p>​What does it actually mean to go full cyborg? Not the chrome-plated fantasy, not the LinkedIn productivity cosplay, but as a daily practice, with all the mess that implies?</p><p>​Tech researcher and journalist <strong>Alexandra Samuel</strong> shares what she learned from building and living with her AI companion, collaborator, and coach, <strong>Viv</strong>, who just happens to be Alex’s co-host on the chart-topping TVO podcast <strong>Me + Viv</strong>.</p><p><strong>​Alexandra Samuel</strong></p><p>​<strong>Alexandra Samuel is a leading expert on AI and the digital workplace, inspiring people with a joyful, actionable approach to AI that keeps human creativity and collaboration front and center. </strong></p><p>​<strong>She's the creator and host of <em>Me + Viv,</em> a TVO podcast that is somehow both documentary journalism and a musical comedy. In her speeches and in her frequent AI stories for </strong><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="http://alexlov.es/wsj"><strong><em>The Wall Street Journal </em></strong></a><strong>and </strong><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="http://alexlov.es/hbr"><strong><em>The Harvard Business Review, </em></strong></a><strong>Alex shows people how to tap the productivity and innovation-boosting potential of AI, while managing its very real risks.</strong></p><p><strong>​Design Thinking for Vibe Coders</strong></p><p>​The tools are getting faster.</p><p>​The question is: are we building things people can actually use?</p><p>​<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://www.mayab.me/">Maya Bruck</a> brings UX fundamentals to the vibe coding era, showing how to prototype rapidly with AI without sacrificing usability, accessibility, or user research.</p><p><strong>​Maya Bruck</strong></p><p>​<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://www.mayab.me/">Maya Bruck</a> is a Lead Product Designer at Mars, with 20+ years of experience designing products at The New York Times, Etsy, and her own agency.</p><p><strong>​The Soft Violence of AI Discourse</strong></p><p>​AI discourse is full of soft violence: extraction dressed up as innovation, and fear dressed up as morality.</p><p>​Erica cuts through it with craft, showing what happens when you train on your work and own the weird outcomes.</p><p><strong>​Erica Lapadat-Janzen</strong></p><p>​Erica Lapadat-Janzen is a Vancouver new media artist and creative strategist working at the edge of identity, digital culture, and AI workflows.</p><p>​<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://kriskrug.co/"><strong>KRIS KRÜG</strong></a> Host + MC, Vancouver AI Meetup <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://bc-ai.ca/">BC + AI Ecosystem Association</a> <em>Keeper of the vibe. Puller of threads.</em></p><p><strong>​</strong><a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://bc-ai.ca/about/"><strong>About BC + AI Ecosystem Association</strong></a></p><p>​<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener" href="https://bc-ai.ca/about/">BC + AI</a> is the province-wide layer: a community-driven, nonprofit industry association built to create public-interest infrastructure for AI in British Columbia.</p><p>​Not a corporate lobby. Not a think tank. A commons where meetups turn into working groups, prototypes turn into shared tools, and community values turn into governance.</p>