Arati Prabhakar, former Science and Technology Advisor to President Biden and current UC Berkeley Executive Fellow in Applied Technology Policy gave the following address to the School of Information graduating class on May 19, 2025:
Hello, graduates! I’m so excited to be with you tonight! Hello families and friends! Hello faculty and staff! What an honor for me to get to do this with you.
Graduates, I am looking at you. I’ve been watching you today on campus. I’ve seen a lot of smiles; I’ve seen some styles — pretty fun to watch! Mostly, what I am seeing are a bunch of graduates with stars in their eyes and you have earned those stars from all this work you’ve put in, the dedication, and the effort over these years to earn these degrees. I want to take a moment to really enjoy that, and I’m telling you, I look around you and what I see everywhere are people whom you have made proud. I am one of those people; I couldn't be prouder of the work you have done and I cannot wait to see what you are going to do in the time that is ahead.
And what a time it is… How often have you heard someone say, “I just want to live in precedented times?” Well, here’s the thing: we do not get to live in precedented times. Our time is one of change and tumult. It’s a time that’s testing us, but also a time that’s calling us to a better future. And as the new graduates of the Berkeley School of Information, you are particularly poised to meet this moment. For each of you, the path you have chosen is going to prove to be particularly essential in this moment.
Tonight I want to share with you 3 messages about this moment in history. Here we go.
Graduates! The year is 2025 and it’s time to recognize that the Information Age is about and for people.
As information becomes so intimate with our lives, the Information Age is even more of a human and a social phenomenon than a technical one.
Now, if you had known me 40 years ago, I was sitting in an audience like this, wearing my cap and gown in a long row with other people as I was completing my graduate degree. Back then, we knew big changes were afoot with information technology, but our ability to peer into the future was limited. It would have been hard to imagine that today, 5 billion people around the world have smartphones and access to the internet. You all know how that has changed how all of live and work and thrive, and it would have been even harder to imagine many of the dark consequences that came hand in hand with these advances. They come hand-in-hand, and you know what these dark consequences are:
- Mental health issues for kids
- Employers surveilling workers
- Data brokers monetizing our attention and our privacy
- Cyber vulnerabilities that can cause cascading catastrophes
- Algorithms and automated decision systems that perpetuate the biased actions of our imperfect past
- And most destructive of all, the loss of trust
A shift that happened as the numbers of devices and bits exploded. In that process, information and information technology became more and more intimate with us. It used to be that a computer used to be a special machine in an air-conditioned room down the hall. Now we each have dozens and at least one of them is always at our fingertips. I actually left mine in the green room so I’m a little bit twitchy up here because it’s so far. And you all know that with those devices came email and texts and then social media radically changing how we communicate and connect. And now we are literally building machines out of human information; I’m talking, of course, about our artificial intelligence systems that we train on our every syllable and pixel, on our every decision and action. Now, the world still talks about these changes as technology changes, but you know that as information becomes more intimate with our lives, the Information Age is even more of a human and a social phenomenon than a technical one.
As graduates of the Berkeley School of Information, you get this and you will bring this perspective to every product you develop, every research question you explore, every business you build, every policy you make. Graduates, as you do this work, you will show the world that the Information Age is about and for people.
Graduates! The year is 2025 and it’s time to meet our national crisis and overcome it to chart a better course ahead.
You are graduating in the most critical moment for America in a century and a half. The divisions that are tearing our country apart have led to an administration that is:
- Turning its back on our allies around the world
- Denying the basic facts of climate change and medical science
- Turning away from an 8-decade commitment to public research and development that has improved the health, prosperity, and security of every Americans
- At the core of it all are the most fundamental issues of the rule of law and our Constitution.
And that means that today, the great American experiment is at risk. This is the experiment that tests the most inspiring hypothesis you could possibly imagine: the notion that We The People can achieve equality, liberty, and opportunity beyond the limitations of the past, that We The People can build a better future for ourselves than a king or dictator. It’s a hypothesis that Americans have proven over and over again as geopolitics evolved, as the conditions of our lives evolved, and as we evolved our definition of the people in “We The People”. Because of this great experiment, our country gave limitless opportunities to a little girl who came here from India with her parents at the age of three — a kid who grew up in Lubbock, Texas. This country gave me the opportunity to study in our great universities, to build companies and create products and jobs, to work in government to serve the people, to walk into the Oval Office and advise the President of the United States, and to live in the love of family and friends.
We don’t get to live in precedented times, but we get to do the work that will shape the arc of the future, and that’s worth every effort.
Graduates, you are here today because this country gave you tremendous opportunities. The opportunities you have seized were made possible by this great experiment. Now, America’s fate depends on the 340M people across our nation and each of us has a responsibility as a citizen and a member of society. Don’t underestimate the power of your voice, pay attention to what’s happening in our country, form your views, and take a stand. Graduates, as you do this work, you will help meet our national crisis.
Graduates! The year is 2025 and it’s time to achieve our great aspirations for the future.
Because the chaos swirling around us doesn’t change the fact that our aspirations are as great as they have ever been. Innovation is still core to the American identity and despite all our challenges, we live in a time of boundless possibilities. So let’s build a future of health:
- In which no infectious disease outbreak ever becomes a full-blown pandemic
- In which only the old-timers remember when diabetes was common
- In which virtually no parent ever has to hear their child has cancer
Let’s build a future for our natural world:
- In which we protect communities from heat and fires and flooding
- In which we decarbonize in time to avoid the worst ravages of climate change
- In which we renew our relationship with nature and draw strength and solace from a world still filled with rich biodiversity
Let’s build a future with AI:
- In which we gain great efficiencies and at the same time, strengthen our long-held values
A future in which we use AI to
- Develop new medicines faster
- Provide a better weather forecast
- Transform public services
- And close educational gaps among our kids
Every single one of these astonishing futures is feasible. All of you glimpsed them when you did the work here at the I School. I saw your projects that were about improving health, building community, boosting sustainability, and empowering people. And so you know that we can change the lives of people everywhere. Graduates: as you do this work, you will help achieve our greatest aspirations.
The poet Seamus Heaney said, “The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life.” We don’t get to live in precedented times, but we get to do the work that will bend the arc of the future, and that’s worth every effort.
So, graduates, it’s time:
- It’s time to recognize that the Information Age is about and for people.
- It’s time to overcome our national crisis.
- It’s time to achieve our great aspirations for the future.
Over and over, throughout history, people have risen to meet their moment and to create a better tomorrow. Now, it’s our time.
Graduates! It’s your time.
Thank you!
