OIQ President's Cocktail: Engineering Judgment in the Age of Agentic AI
- Philippe Beaudoin
- October 13, 2026
- Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec
About the Event
The Cocktail de la présidente is an exclusive gathering organized by the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ), bringing together engineering leaders, innovators, and key ecosystem stakeholders. Designed as an intimate space for dialogue, the event spotlights critical transformations reshaping engineering practice, governance, and public protection in Quebec.
Fireside Chat: Engineering Judgment in the Age of Agentic AI
As artificial intelligence shifts from passive assistance toward autonomous, multi-agent workflows, the engineering profession faces a profound paradigm shift. While the foundational duty of the engineer remains clear—protecting the public through rigorous, responsible oversight—the accelerating autonomy and competence of AI systems challenge how human oversight is exercised in practice.
In an on-stage conversation with OIQ President Sophie Larivière-Mantha, this fireside chat moves beyond apocalyptic science-fiction tropes to address the immediate, systemic implications of frontier AI on professional practice.
Key Themes:
- From tools to agentic systems: What it practically means when AI systems progress toward functional autonomy and multi-agent coordination, and what limits remain.
- Keeping humans at the controls: Mitigating the insidious risk of “lowering our guard”—where highly fluent outputs lead practitioners to rubber-stamp decisions without genuine comprehension.
- Competence vs. the illusion of mastery: Distinguishing between AI that truly enhances engineering skills and AI that merely creates an illusion of competence, particularly for junior engineers developing foundational judgment.
- Balancing silicon and peer mentorship: Why peer-to-peer knowledge transmission and collective professional standards remain irreplaceable even in an AI-saturated engineering workflow.
Participants:
- Philippe Beaudoin, Visiting Industry Researcher, Vector Institute
- Host: Sophie Larivière-Mantha, ing., President, Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ)