Language and AI Working Group

The Languages and AI working group fosters interdisciplinary dialogues on the implications of artificial intelligence for language and language education. More specifically, we are interested in critically examining the relationship between AI and language education, literature, translation, and the ethical and legal questions that arise out of increasing AI use in the humanities. We welcome students, faculty, staff, program administrators, and visiting scholars interested in how AI impacts language.

The Language and AI Working Group is sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities and the Berkeley Language Center. 

For questions or to be added to our listserv for event details, please contact Emily Hellmich (eahellmich@berkeley.edu). 

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Current Initiatives 

Language & AI Conferences

The Working Group regularly hosts conferences that delve deeply into a topic at the intersection of language and AI. Check out our last two conferences here. 

Language & AI Forum 

Language & AI Forum sessions feature speakers from around campus who work on some facet of language and AI. Topics of presentation may include, but aren’t limited to: research (in progress or completed); particular articles or readings; pedagogical models or initiatives; creative projects.  The goals of these sessions are 1) to share ideas and different ways of engaging with language and AI and 2) to build community across campus. Students, staff, instructors, and faculty are invited to attend.

Spring 2025 Speaker Lineup 

March 7, 12pm

Personalizing Language Teaching with AI 

Marc Anthony Santamaria | Lecturer at UC Berkeley Law School; ESL Instructor at UC Berkeley College of Writing

33 Dwinelle and Zoom 

March 14, 12pm

Linguistic Bias in ChatGPT & Language Ideology in Generative AI

Eve Fleisig | PhD Student, Berkeley EECS

Genevieve Smith | Founding Director of the BAIR Responsible AI Initiative & Professional Faculty, Berkeley Haas

33 Dwinelle and Zoom 

April 4, 12pm 

Stories We Code: Keywords That Describe and Determine AI

Margaret Kolb | Lecturer in the College of Engineering 

33 Dwinelle and Zoom

April 11, 12pm  | 33 Dwinelle and Zoom 

Normative Evaluation of Large Language Models with Everyday Moral Dilemmas

Pratik Sachdeva | Senior Data Scientist, D-Lab

Tom Van Nuenen | Senior Data Scientist, D-Lab

 33 Dwinelle and Zoom 

April 18, 12pm  | 33 Dwinelle and Zoom 

TBD

Wan Naszeerah | PhD Candidate, Public Health

 33 Dwinelle and Zoom