AI Ambitions with Arati Prabhakar | UC Berkeley Executive Fellowship in Applied Tech Policy

Why It Matters

The remarks frame AI and other tech advances as public goods that require robust federal R&D and policy oversight, signaling a push for government-led investment and regulation to steer AI toward broad social benefits. That stance could influence funding priorities, legislative debates, and how universities prepare the next generation of tech policymakers.

Summary

Arati Prabhakar, speaking about the UC Berkeley Executive Fellowship in Applied Tech Policy, argued that transformative technologies—from smartphones to cancer therapies—are rooted in publicly funded research and therefore belong to the public. She described the fellowship as launched amid national turmoil to deepen understanding of federal R&D and to translate those insights for policymakers and the broader public. Prabhakar emphasized training students to pair technical expertise with ethical and societal thinking, stressing urgent choices about how AI is governed. She warned that while private firms contribute, sustained public investment and policy action are required to realize longer-term societal benefits within the next decade.

Original Description

Arati Prabhakar, former Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, spent her UC Berkeley Executive Fellowship in Applied Technology Policy making the case for greater ambitions for AI. Her policy work documents the impacts of federal R&D as a path forward for AI in the public interest, not for profit.

This video is part of Policy in Practice, a series documenting the research of the 2025 Executive Fellows.