Join us on December 2, 2025 at 4:00pm for a talk by Maximilian Kasy, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford, presenting his book "The Means of Prediction: How AI Really Works (and Who Benefits)." In this book, Kasy shows that artificial intelligence, far from being an unstoppable force, is irrevocably shaped by human decisions—choices made to date by the ownership class that steers its development and deployment. He explains the fundamental principles on which AI works, and, in doing so, reveals that the real conflict isn’t between humans and machines, but between those who control the machines and the rest of us.
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Alexis Madrigal: “To Know a Place”
In this Matrix Distinguished Lecture, journalist Alexis Madrigal — host of KQED's Forum and a contributing writer at The Atlantic — turns his attention to the question of how we come to know a place. Drawing on his background as a reporter, writer, and thinker of cities, landscapes, and histories, he will explore different ways of writing about and understanding place, revealing how perspective, memory, and narrative inform the stories we tell about the world around us.