“Student protesters on Friday shut down an event featuring a top Google AI scientist, stating the tech is used to kill Palestinians and refusing to leave after being asked several times by the audience, organizers — and police,” reports The College Fix.
A Berkeley Forum and College of Engineering event hosted Google chief scientist and Gemini lead Jeff Dean, who Time magazine described as a “legend in the world of AI.”
But two dozen activists from the campus May Day demonstration crashed the talk half an hour after it had started, chanting “UC, UC, you can’t hide, you are funding genocide.”
Protesters ranted about how AI is allegedly “used to kill Palestinians.” Dean replied that was there to deliver a “scientific lecture,” not get embroiled in politics.
“During a 10-minute back-and-forth between the protesters, event organizers and attendees, the audience largely expressed support for Dean, chanting his name and cheering when asked if they wanted to hear from him, and booed the protesters,” the Californian says.
Although organizers — and university police — repeatedly asked the protesters to leave the event, they refused. The Californian reports that at “1:47 p.m., event organizers announced that they were shutting down the event, and attendees and protesters left the room.”
Comments responding to a post about the situation on Berkeley’s subreddit expressed antipathy to the protesters. “We should start suspending students who do this,” said a commenter. “And this is why all the good speakers go to Stanford instead of Berkeley,” said a different commenter.
The crashing of Dean’s speech cam less than a week after a lawsuit was filed in state court against the university related to left-wing disruptions of speaking events on its campus.
A lawsuit by the Center for American Liberty seeks to enforce a public records request seeking information about a disorderly protest six months ago in which Antifa protesters sought to shut down a Turning Point USA event.
