Protesters interrupted and shut down a Berkeley Forum and College of Engineering event featuring Google chief scientist and Gemini lead Jeff Dean this afternoon, criticizing the use of Gemini AI in the genocide in Gaza.
Approximately 20 protesters marched over from the May Day rally held at noon in front of California Hall. After the rally concluded, a student organizer announced that a speaker from Google’s Gemini AI was speaking at the Grimes Engineering Center and called on rally attendees to join him in disrupting the event, which had started at 1 p.m. The group of protesters headed over to Grimes and entered the event, held in the Eugene Jarvis Auditorium, at 1:37 p.m.
One of the student protesters, a member of Students Organizing for Liberation at UC Berkeley, walked onto the stage with a megaphone and interrupted Dean’s speech. The student led the other protesters, who lined up in the aisle of the event, in a chant of “UC, UC, you can’t hide, you are funding genocide.”
“What do you say for your AI being used to kill Palestinians?” the student asked Dean.
Dean responded that he appreciated the students’ message but was trying to deliver a “scientific lecture.”
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.
“We decided to stop by and disrupt this event because we thought that it was important that students know that this is a man complicit in genocide,” said a protester, who requested anonymity due to safety concerns. “It was really saddening to see basically the entire auditorium erupting in applause for this man, especially chanting his name.”
Organizers from the Berkeley Forum and the College of Engineering, as well as UCPD officers, repeatedly asked the protesters to leave the event. Electrical engineering and computer sciences department chair Jelani Nelson walked on stage to the microphone and offered to speak with the protesters outside the auditorium so the event could continue, but the protesters did not agree to Nelson’s request.
At approximately 1:47 p.m., event organizers announced that they were shutting down the event, and attendees and protesters left the room. A UCPD officer followed some of the protesters out of the event.
“We honor the values of free speech that are ingrained in UC Berkeley’s history and that are part of our community values,” said Berkeley Engineering spokesperson Sarah Yang in a written statement. “Free expression includes the right to protest. It does not include the right to silence others.”
In a written statement, the Berkeley Forum said it is a “proponent of everyone’s right to free speech” but “wish that a thoughtful discourse could have taken place.”
“The safety of our speakers and audience is always our highest priority, which is why we made the decision to cut the Jeff Dean event short,” said the Berkeley Forum in a statement. “Hundreds of people chose to attend the event, and we are disappointed that they were unable to hear Mr. Dean speak.”
Sam Grotenstein and Sevag Halajian contributed to this report.