People, Profiles

Berkeley goes to Davos

By Public Affairs

International leaders from the realms of business, government, academia and civil society gathered over the past week in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. UC Berkeley — the only public university to be invited — sent a contingent of luminaries who made the case for the global importance of public higher education in presentations, blog posts, panel discussions and debates, meetings and informal conversations.

Dirks at panel discussion

Chancellor Dirks introduces Berkeley faculty at a standing-room-only panel discussion on artificial intelligence.

Led by Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, the group represented a broad cross-section of academic disciplines, and included Laura Tyson (Haas School of Business), Jennifer Doudna (chemistry, molecular and cell biology) Alison Gopnik (psychology and philosophy), Robert T. Knight (psychology and neuroscience), Ken Goldberg (new media) and Stuart Russell (computer science), many of whom blogged from the conference (see below). Among the week’s many highlights was a Berkeley faculty-led panel discussion on artificial intelligence before a standing-room-only crowd.

For a sampling of Berkeley’s intellectual contributions to the forum, check out these posts:

Dirks: How are universities adapting to globalization?

Tyson: How governments can spur innovation.

Doudna: Q&A: Towards the end of genetic disease?

Goldberg: Will machines make better decisions than humans?

Gopnik: What babies tell us about aritificial intelligence.

Russell: AI: How can we manage robot risk?