Berkeley Talks

Aug 07, 2026 — In the early hours of November 2007, Amadou Cisse, a 29-year-old University of Chicago chemistry graduate student, was walking home when Demetrius Warren, then 17, and Benjamin Williams, 21, approached him. According to trial testimony, Warren pointed...

Jul 24, 2026 — In 1957, a terrified 17-year-old girl lay on a Harlem kitchen table undergoing an illegal, backstreet abortion. Nearly dying from complications, she was rushed to a hospital ward where nurses badgered her and demanded to know what she had done. That...

Jul 10, 2026 — In the early days of personal computing, people imagined artificial intelligence as a single, self-contained system — a kind of digital brain with a fixed identity. Talking to AI meant asking questions to a clearly defined machine. That picture no...

Jun 26, 2026 — When Princeton University Professor Mark Johnston's daughter was 18 months old, she stood on a beach with what he describes as a "quizzical philosophical look on her face, as if she was thinking, 'Is this my only life?'" That question is the heart of...

Jun 12, 2026 — As television producer Halle Stanford drove through Topanga Canyon in Southern California listening to Dolly Parton, she was struck by a moment of inspiration. “I had this vision of a little hedgehog on the side of the road in her little pink hiking...