University of Washington's Professor Carl Bergstrom public talks

Name: University of Washington's Professor Carl Bergstrom public talks
Start: 2026-02-10T02:00:00+13:00
End: 2026-02-11T02:00:00+13:00
Location: Various lecture theatres at Otago's Dunedin campus

Schedule

Tue, 10 Feb, 2026 at 02:00 am to Wed, 11 Feb, 2026 at 02:00 am

UTC+13:00

Location

Various lecture theatres at Otago's Dunedin campus | Dunedin, OT

The University of Washington's Professor Carl Bergstrom will be delivering not one, but three free public talks at Otago’s Dunedin campus this February.
As a member of the External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, Carl has led a varied and rewarding academic career with research centering around the concept of information.
His biology expertise has enabled him to research how communication has evolved over time and how evolution has encoded information in genomes. His philosophy and sociology proficiency has equipped him with the tools he needed to study how norms and institutions influence scholars’ research strategies and scientific understanding of the world. Lastly, his informatics background has led him to extensively investigate how citations and other academic tools can be used to better navigate the overwhelming volume of scholarly literature. This includes researching how disinformation spreads on social networks and ways in which this can be mitigated.
He is visiting Dunedin to share his biology, philosophy and informatics expertise at the following public talks:
Titled, 'Modern-day oracles or bullshit machines? How to thrive in a ChatGPT world', Carl will discuss the development, rationale, and themes of the online course developed by him and Jevin D. West. This will take place on Tuesday, 10 February, at 12pm in Room 033/036 of the Adams Building. https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/events/modern-day-oracles-or-bullshit-machines-how-to-thrive-in-a-chatgpt-world
Also taking place on Tuesday, 10 February, is Carl's seminar titled, 'The crisis of human collective decision-making in a social media world'. Happening at 5:30pm at the Archway 3 Lecture Theatre, this presentation will center around what social media and information technology are doing to society, how society ended up where it already is, and where it might go from here. https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/events/the-crisis-of-human-collective-decision-making-in-a-social-media-world
On Wednesday, 11 February, at 12pm at the John Arnaud Bell Lecture Theatre G.09, Carl will deliver his final lecture in Dunedin. This one will be about how finding willing and qualified reviewers to review scholarly articles has become an increasingly challenging task that could threaten peer review as an institution. The talk is titled, 'Will anyone review this paper? Screening, sorting and the feedback cycles that imperil peer review'. https://www.otago.ac.nz/news/events/will-anyone-review-this-paper
The University of Otago thanks Te Pūnaha Matatini, the New Zealand Centre of Research Excellence, for sponsoring Carl's trip to Aotearoa and enabling him to share his varied expertise with Dunedin academics.