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Santa Fe Institute presents
Alison Gopnik: Transmission Versus Truth, October 21, 2025 7:30 PM
Event Summary
Accessibility at the Lensic
- The mezzanine and balcony do not have elevator access.
- Removable seats for wheelchair access or bariatric seating are available in rows BB, A, B, and S in our Orchestra level.
- If you need seats removed for this access, please include that information in your order notes and call the box office at (505) 988-1234.
- Removable seats are marked with a wheelchair on the seat map.
- Seats with adjustable armrests for easier access are available in seats D101, D112, H101, H112, K1, and K2.
- Seats with extended legroom are in row O in the Orchestra and row K in the Balcony.
- The venue is equipped with a Telecoil Hearing Loop; if you have a t-coil enabled hearing device, you can activate it once you arrive. If you do not have a t-coil enabled hearing device, receivers are available for loan. Please ask an usher for assistance.
- Areas with limited telecoil reception will have a warning before purchasing your tickets.
- An accessible restroom is located in the lobby.
- Restrooms are located in the atrium attached to the Lensic; there are no concessions or restrooms located in the mezzanine.
- For more information, visit https://lensic.org/visit/accessibility
Tickets
- Access Digital Tickets by logging into https://wallet.lensic.org
- All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges.
- For information on service fees, visit https://lensic.org/visit/box-office-hours-and-ticket-policies/
Item details
Date
October 21, 2025 7:30 PM
Name
Santa Fe Institute presents
Alison Gopnik: Transmission Versus Truth
Description
Tickets on sale: Thursday, February 6, 2025 at 10am
There is no such thing as general intelligence — artificial or natural — argues Alison Gopnik. Instead, there are multiple intelligences, each with its own trade-offs. Three different types of cognitive capacities mark human development, and our life histories accommodate intrinsic trade-offs between the three. The extended human childhood allows a period of protected broad-ranging exploration and truth-seeking, adulthood allows exploitation and resource gathering, and post-menopausal elderhood allows caregiving and cultural transmission. Each period involves motivations and computational capacities that are in tension with those of other periods, but the full suite of development allows for maximal adaptation to changing and variable environments. The human life history offers lessons for AI, suggests Gopnik. Different types of AI enable different capacities: intrinsically motivated reinforcement learning can help enable exploration and truth-finding, while Large Language Models are means of cultural transmission.
Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, and a member of the Berkeley AI Research Group. She received her BA from McGill University and her PhD. from Oxford University. She is a leader in the study of cognitive science and of children’s learning and development.
The 2025 Santa Fe Institute Community Lecture Series is free to attend thanks to generous sponsorship by the McKinnon Family Foundation.
Seats
Accessibility at the Lensic
- The mezzanine and balcony do not have elevator access.
- Removable seats for wheelchair access or bariatric seating are available in rows BB, A, B, and S in our Orchestra level.
- If you need seats removed for this access, please include that information in your order notes and call the box office at (505) 988-1234.
- Removable seats are marked with a wheelchair on the seat map.
- Seats with adjustable armrests for easier access are available in seats D101, D112, H101, H112, K1, and K2.
- Seats with extended legroom are in row O in the Orchestra and row K in the Balcony.
- The venue is equipped with a Telecoil Hearing Loop; if you have a t-coil enabled hearing device, you can activate it once you arrive. If you do not have a t-coil enabled hearing device, receivers are available for loan. Please ask an usher for assistance.
- Areas with limited telecoil reception will have a warning before purchasing your tickets.
- An accessible restroom is located in the lobby.
- Restrooms are located in the atrium attached to the Lensic; there are no concessions or restrooms located in the mezzanine.
- For more information, visit https://lensic.org/visit/accessibility
Tickets
- Access Digital Tickets by logging into https://wallet.lensic.org
- All sales are final. No refunds or exchanges.
- For information on service fees, visit https://lensic.org/visit/box-office-hours-and-ticket-policies/