"How to Create a Meaningful Life in the Age of AI," Professor Jennifer Aaker
What this covers
Professor Jennifer Aaker explores how artificial intelligence might serve human flourishing by examining an unlikely starting point: the regrets of people at the end of life. Drawing on psychological research, personal reflection, and design examples, she argues that the choice of whether AI amplifies or flattens human experience rests with us. The talk weaves together findings on emotional change across the lifespan, the structure of a well-lived life, and concrete applications of AI tools in education and caregiving—all oriented toward a single question: how can we build technology that deepens what makes us human rather than replacing it.
The substance turns on three themes that dominate end-of-life regret: authenticity (the wish to have lived truer to oneself), boldness (the wish to have taken bigger risks), and love (the wish to have spoken it more often). Aaker shows how these dimensions surface across research—in studies of beautiful moments versus happy ones, in semantic analysis of how emotional language shifts with age, in meditation experiments, and in the sensory vividness that makes certain experiences stick in memory. She argues that artificial intelligence, properly designed, can amplify each. Custom bots free teachers to spend more time in genuine connection; machine vision in classrooms catches children who might otherwise be overlooked; personalized AI can help people express their values more consistently. Yet she is equally clear about AI's limits: no algorithm can replace a hand held in a hospital room or a song sung poorly to someone dying. The argument carries throughout that choosing technology's role in our lives—knowing when to use it and when to set it down—is the distinctly human choice that matters.
AI should be designed and used to deepen human authenticity, boldness, and connection rather than merely optimizing for speed and productivity, enabling people to live more meaningful lives aligned with their values.
- Technology can amplify rather than replace humanity when designed to operationalize love and help people be more true to themselves
- End-of-life research reveals people regret inauthenticity, timidity, and disconnection—suggesting AI's real power lies in helping us avoid these regrets
- AI tools can shift energy from rote tasks (80% repetitive feedback) to elevated human connection (80% personalized engagement), freeing capacity for what matters
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Awe occurs when you feel small and the world feels big, and while it is typically triggered by grand stimuli (sunsets, Yosemite, tornadoes), beauty's distinctive power is that the visual vividness and sensorial touch of even mundane moments—like hugging a colleague or a child looking up at you—can transform them into experiences of awe.
“when you feel awe, it's when you feel small and the world feels big... What's powerful about beauty is that you can find a beautiful moment in the smallest of moments... the visual vividness, the sensorial touch often times transforms very mundane moments into something that could in fact create awe.”
The most common regrets and wishes of dying people cluster into three themes: authenticity (wishing they had been more true to themselves rather than living others' expectations), boldness (wishing they had taken bigger risks and moved more), and love (wishing they had said 'I love you' one more time, often to a person they'd lost touch with).
“one is authenticity. People often wish that they had been more true to themselves... The second is boldness. Uh they wish that they had taken bolder risk... And the third is love. They wish that they had the chance to say I love you one more time.”
A brief loving-kindness meditation (even just one minute) focused on recalling someone who has loved you deeply produces measurable shifts in how people define happiness and increases likelihood of pro-social behavior compared to control conditions.
“when we do research studies and we do that loving kindness meditation even just for one minute uh and we'll do that for like half of our subjects versus a signature strength... what we find is when we give these two conditions a set of questions they dramatically shift. There's uh strong differences. These individuals say that they actually experience happiness as calm and contentment as peace... These individuals um define happiness much more as excitement... These individuals um are much more likely to do pro-social things.”
Beautiful moments differ fundamentally from happy moments even though both are positively valenced: in a month-long study, people sharing beautiful moments increased their everyday mindfulness and self-awareness and reported about 20% greater memory accuracy of those moments two months later, because beautiful moments are visually vivid and sensorially tagged whereas happy moments are merely positively valenced.
“we put people through a month-long study... a beautiful condition... or happy moments. Now you think these are both very positively valanced moments but they're extremely different... they also report 20% greater memory accuracy two months later of those moments... beautiful moments are visually vivid sensorally tagged”
The Zusya parable—where the divine asks not 'how much did you accomplish?' but 'why weren't you more Zusya?'—reframes success in life as the degree to which you became more fully yourself rather than the degree to which you achieved.
“She said, "It was Zesus. Why weren't you more zeus?" And I think this is such a profound point um about this idea of understanding what is success in life”
People dramatically underestimate their future capacity to change: when asked, they report having changed enormously in their personality and values over the past decade, yet immediately deny they will change in the next decade—revealing that humans are not built to imagine or embrace future change.
“they asked individuals um how much change... have you changed in the last decade? And looking back, people said they I've changed so much... Then right after that, they said, "How much will you change in the next decade?" And immediately people said, "No, I won't. I'll be myself"”
Talking about happiness once a week ('what was your happy moment?') paradoxically makes people less happy because it raises expectations; reframing the practice to share a 'beautiful moment' instead avoids this ironic effect.
“the research by Iris Moss and others shows that when you talk about happiness once a week... you'll actually get less happy because you have higher expectations. It's this very ironic effect... let's talk about what is a beautiful moment.”
Beautiful moments are visually vivid, sensorially tagged, and neurologically distinct from happy moments, making them more memorable and creating enriched, sustained perception of those moments.
“happy moments are seen as positively valance beautiful moments are visually vivid sensorally tagged and so neurologically we know where to go when we start to think of those moments.”
Dr. James Evans at University of Chicago uses AI models to analyze thousands of research papers, conferences, and unpublished work across adjacent fields to identify novel research hypotheses that are then tested, claiming that science and technology are engines of human flourishing.
“Dr. James Evans at University of Chicago will use AI models to predict um again like what I do what a lot of us do social science models that predict human well-being for example and they'll say they'll look at thousands upon thousands of research papers something that would take me thousands and thousands of years um and they'll look at conferences and unpublished papers and neglected spaces across different adjacent um ideas in order to come up with hyp hypothesis and then in time experiment and actually test those hypotheses. And he says that science and technology are the engine which drives human flourishing.”
A semantic analysis of 13 million blog mentions of 'I feel' and 'I am feeling,' cut by age, reveals that the meaning and correlates of happiness shift dramatically across the lifespan: limited emotional vocabulary at 12-14, angst at 15-18, confinement at 18-20, ambition tied to money/power/status correlating with happiness in the early 20s, then a trade toward balance, body-awareness around 35, and an evolving sense of connectedness and gratitude in later years.
“in 13 million data points my co-authors Cassie Holmes and Sap Seb Canvar and I uh wrote a computer algorithm program that combed the blogosphere for all mentions of I feel and I am feeling... we could basically cut the data across age.”
A one-minute loving-kindness meditation produces measurably different psychological outcomes than a signature-strength meditation: the loving-kindness group experiences happiness as calm and contentment (like 50-year-olds), is more likely to do pro-social things (e.g., giving up a bus seat), and trained children become about 23% more likely to give away their stickers.
“when we do that loving kindness meditation even just for one minute... These individuals say that they actually experience happiness as calm and contentment as peace... They're more likely to give up a seat at a bus to someone else... Kids that are trained on loving kindness meditation are much more likely about 23% more likely to give away their stickers.”
Research on the 'end of history illusion' shows that humans dramatically overestimate how much they will change in the future relative to how much they actually changed in the past: people recall substantial personality and value changes over the previous decade but predict they will remain largely unchanged over the next decade.
“in one set of studies by my co-authors, they asked individuals um how much change uh how much ch how much have you changed in the last decade? And looking back, people said they I've changed so much, my personality, my values. Then right after that, they said, 'How much will you change in the next decade?' And immediately people said, 'No, I won't. I'll be myself, my own authentic self.' Right after they said, 'Change so much.' Um, humans are not necessarily rational.”
Young people (ages 18-20) report feelings of confinement, not knowing themselves, and being unseen by others, creating a critical window where educational and interpersonal interventions supporting self-knowledge and belonging could be most impactful.
“there's feelings of confinement around 18, 19, 20. They start to feel like they don't know themselves. Others don't see them. um and they don't have the ability to know where necessarily are they going”
Neural structures associated with fear and fight-flight are activated when humans neurologically imagine change, suggesting that humans are neurologically built to resist change and make boldness difficult.
“certainly people don't have this innate capability to easily imagine how much we have the ability to change in the future. Uh even neurologically when we imagine change the um neural structures associated with fear and fight and flight get activated.”
AI models can accelerate scientific discovery by analyzing thousands of research papers, conferences, unpublished papers, and neglected adjacent spaces to generate hypotheses that humans would take thousands of years to surface, then test them—because science and technology are the engine driving human flourishing.
“they'll look at thousands upon thousands of research papers something that would take me thousands and thousands of years... in order to come up with hyp hypothesis and then in time experiment... he says that science and technology are the engine which drives human flourishing.”
AI is evolving through stages—machine learning (era of data), deep learning (neural networks), generative AI (text/image/video), and now 'generative science'—where scientific models, not just large language models, are used to predict where breakthroughs in human well-being and society will occur.
“we've moved from machine learning um which is much more the era of data. Then we went to deep learning... And then we started thinking about generative AI... And then in our class we think a lot about generative science.”
In dying, hearing is the last sense to go—so talking to or singing to someone even in a coma is productive—and playing a song a person loved as a child can soothe anxiety in their final moments, allowing them to cross over peacefully.
“the sense of sound uh is the last to go. So even if they're in a coma, you know, talking to them is actually quite productive... it's often good to actually play a song that they loved as a child.”
When humans imagine change, the neural structures associated with fear and fight-or-flight become activated, meaning we are not neurologically built to enjoy change.
“even neurologically when we imagine change the um neural structures associated with fear and fight and flight get activated. So humans are not necessarily um built to really enjoy change.”
Knowing people's favorite songs and having them available for moments of crossing over (end of life) helps people transition peacefully, and the sense of sound is the last to go even in coma, making music a powerful connector in final moments.
“one thing we learned is um this idea of knowing when AI is not too useful, when your human presence, holding your hand, singing poorly, um, is in fact the antidote to technology that can go ary when we have the choice to put down the phone, put down the technology, and just be and change that moment.”
Authenticity is very hard to define or achieve concretely, but it is easy to recognize through feeling—'we know it when we feel it'—which is why the felt experience of a moment can signal whether one is living in alignment.
“although it is very hard to understand what actually authenticity means in any concrete way, we know it when we feel it. Like this moment even feels more authentic.”
AI's real power is not speed, productivity, or cost reduction, but its potential to help us live differently—with more beauty, authenticity, boldness, and love—and thus without the regrets that haunt people at the end of life.
“what if AI's real power isn't really speed, productivity, actually uh encouraging cost reduction, but actually helping us live in a very different way without those regrets.”
Knowing when AI is not useful—when human presence, holding a hand, and singing poorly is the true antidote—and choosing to put down the technology to simply be present, is the honor of being human.
“this idea of knowing when AI is not too useful, when your human presence, holding your hand, singing poorly, um, is in fact the antidote to technology that can go ary when we have the choice to put down the phone, put down the technology, and just be”
AI cannot teach us to love, but it can express love, help operationalize love, and allow us to express love in ways that are true to us, more clearly and with more care.
“AI can't teach us to love, but it can express it can allow us to operationalize love, express love in ways that are true to us, more clearly and more with more care.”
People at end of life commonly express three core regrets: they wish they had been more authentic and true to themselves rather than living according to others' expectations, they wish they had taken bolder risks and moved more rather than staying in the status quo, and they wish they had expressed love and maintained connections with people from their past.
“one is authenticity. People often wish that they had been more true to themselves, not live the life that others maybe wanted for them. The second is boldness. Uh they wish that they had taken bolder risk. They'd move more. They take bigger risk... And the third is love. They wish that they had the chance to say I love you one more time.”
The evolution of AI from machine learning (data era) to deep learning (neural networks) to generative AI (text/image/video) to generative science (using scientific models to predict breakthroughs) represents a progression toward more sophisticated problem-solving capability.
“we've seen that we've moved from machine learning um which is much more the era of data. Then we went to deep learning looking much more at the era uh neural networks. And then we started thinking about generative AI which we're all living in in a very um as Peter said textheavy, imageheavy, videoheavy world that surrounds us. And then in our class we think a lot about generative science.”
Beauty is not about perfection—in fact beauty is the antidote to perfection; it is about presence and the feeling of being deeply alive, and beautiful moments can arise even from hard conversations, crying, or challenging discussions where one leaves feeling aligned.
“Beauty isn't about perfection. In fact, you could argue that beauty is the antidote to perfection. It's about presence. It's about the feeling of being deeply alive.”
Analysis of 13 million blog posts using semantic analysis of 'I feel' and 'I am feeling' phrases reveals a distinctive emotional development arc: ages 12-14 show limited emotional vocabulary, ages 15-18 show high anxiety and angst, ages 18-20 show feelings of confinement and not knowing oneself, ages 22-24 prioritize money/power/status, ages 30+ gradually shift toward balance, and ages 35+ increasingly focus on children and connectedness.
“in 13 million data points my co-authors Cassie Holmes and Sap Seb Canvar and I uh wrote a computer algorithm program that combed the blogosphere for all mentions of I feel and I am feeling... we start out simple... There's not a large emotional lexicon associated with the 12 to 14 year old. And then we fill up with angst. So around 15 to 18, our teens start to feel very angsty... then we have feelings of confinement around 18, 19, 20... then we leave those feelings behind to go conquer the world 22 23 24 now money power status... then they start at 30 so they're going like well I overshot there... and then they started blogging about their children and they're only as happy as their least happy child”
Teachers spend roughly 80% of their time delivering the same feedback they gave the previous year and only 20% on genuinely elevated or new content; custom AI bots can flip this ratio to 20/80, freeing teaching teams to do more elevated, connective work and enabling far more one-on-one student time (over 25 hours with 100% of 80 students).
“if you think that as a teacher you spend 80% of your time giving the same sort of feedback you did last year... 20% of your content is truly elevated... And so how do you shift from 8020 to 2080?”
AI-powered machine vision in Wildflower Montessori micro-schools detects when a child is alone or sedentary, alerting teachers so no child slips through the cracks and surfacing unconscious biases in how teachers interact with children—demonstrating that AI cannot teach us to love but can operationalize and express love more clearly and with more care.
“they use an AI powered machine vision uh to keep tabs on how young students learn and play... these sensors um do is basically see when a child is alone or sedentary so as to allow the teachers to be aware that no one should slip through the cracks and to be able to be aware of unconscious biases”
Beauty is not about perfection but about presence and the feeling of being deeply alive; in fact, beauty might be understood as the antidote to perfection.
“Beauty isn't about perfection. In fact, you could argue that beauty is the antidote to perfection. It's about presence. It's about the feeling of being deeply alive.”
Boldness is not primarily about courage or perfection, but rather about being open to change and having the conviction to manifest your authentic self in the world, even when uncertain.
“what's really important about boldness is to understand it's not about being courageous. Um it's really just about being open to change. There's a strong misperception that it's this idea of being perfect and strong all of the time, but in fact having the conviction to manifest um that authentic version of yourself in the world in which you want to inhabit is in fact what is bold.”
There is a story about a woman named Zesus who died and came back and reported that the divine asked her not 'how much did you accomplish' or 'how much did you learn' but 'Why weren't you more Zesus?'—illustrating that the central metric of a life should be how much you embodied your authentic self.
“um Zus was a woman. She heard that if you die um the divine comes to you and asked you a question and she wanted to know what this question was. So um so she managed to die and then come back to life and her friends came around her and said did you get asked the question and she said yes I did. Um I wish I wish it was how much I learned but it wasn't. And they said well what was it? Uh, and she said, 'I wish it was how much did I accomplish, but it wasn't.' She said, 'It was Zesus. Why weren't you more zeus?'”
AI presents a binary choice for humanity: it can be banal or beautiful, automate or amplify, flatten our humanity or help it flourish—and which outcome occurs is ours to choose; if we use AI to deepen authenticity, embolden choices, and strengthen connections, we expand what it means to be human.
“AI can be banel or it can be beautiful. It can automate or it can amplify. It can flatten our humanity or it can help it flourish. It's ours to choose.”
A leadership handbook created with AI assistance—containing personal values, guiding principles, humor style, and biographical narrative—allows students to develop deeper self-knowledge and intentionality about their leadership identity.
“the students get a prompt and so Connor created this um GBT pro um prompt... the students get that and then they start creating their own leadership handbook that allows them to better understand what is authentic to them. So one example is my leadership handbook is here. I've got you know my bio with a little bit of levity. We've got um my values words that are important to me. We got my guiding principles um my humor style.”
In the 'Humor, Serious Business' class, the speaker and teaching team have shifted the ratio of teacher effort from 80% repetitive feedback (given year to year with minimal change) to only 20% truly elevated or new content, creating inefficiency that wastes human potential and opportunity for connection.
“you spend 80% of your time giving the same sort of feedback you did last year even if the class is quite strong it's still very similar feedback 20% of your content is truly elevated or it's new to you. And the question becomes, how do you shift that so that the teaching team members and the students have the flip ratio so that we're doing 80% more elevated work”
When people share beautiful moments daily (either in pairs or in small groups), they show increases in everyday mindfulness and self-awareness, and have 20% greater memory accuracy of those moments two months later compared to baseline.
“We put people through a month-long study and we'll connect with them either every day or two or three times a week and we'll either put people in um a beautiful condition where you're experiencing these beautiful moments and they're sharing them back with us... what we find over time and the effect increases substantially is that over time these individuals not only increase in their everyday mindfulness and self-awareness like I feel like I know myself more. But they also report 20% greater memory accuracy two months later of those moments.”
Wildflower (a network of 70+ micro-schools) uses AI-powered machine vision to monitor student movement and engagement, helping teachers detect when children are alone or sedentary and become aware of unconscious biases in their attention allocation.
“Seb Kar is the CEO of that... we feel fine data set in a network of over 70 monosur micro schools that he creates they use an AI powered machine vision uh to keep tabs on how young students learn and play and move around the classroom... what these sensors um do is basically see when a child is alone or sedentary so as to allow the teachers to be aware that no one should slip through the cracks and to be able to be aware of unconscious biases impacting the way that these teachers interact with the children.”
At Stanford Hospital and Medical Center, AI is being used in labs to work alongside PhD scientists to identify molecular breakthroughs, rare disease mechanisms, and cancer treatments, creating human-AI collaboration that accelerates scientific discovery.
“At the Stamford Hospital in the medical center. There are um are faculty members who are doing really remarkable things with uh basically um um labs um where they have AI that are working as lab um essentially in the lab to identify and break through um uh um not just cancers, biomol molecules, abilities to understand what are even rare diseases looking like and then AI works with the the individuals the PhDs in the lab to identify those breakthroughs.”
AI can be banal or beautiful, automate or amplify, flatten our humanity or help it flourish—the choice of how to design and use AI is fundamentally ours to make.
“AI can be banel or it can be beautiful. It can automate or it can amplify. It can flatten our humanity or it can help it flourish. It's ours to choose.”
When people choose to put down technology and just be present with another person, especially in moments of crossing over or difficulty, that human presence and attention is the most powerful antidote to technology that has gone awry.
“when you have the choice to put down the phone, put down the technology, and just be and change that moment. Um, that is the honor of being human.”
The concept of authenticity is difficult to define in concrete terms, but people reliably recognize and feel it when it is present, making it a practical guide for living even without precise definition.
“It's very hard to actually go be authentic. Uh we found in our research, but it's actually easy to um feel it. So although it is very hard to understand what actually authenticity means in any concrete way, we know it when we feel it. Like this moment even feels more authentic.”
Teaching AI for human well-being to a class of half engineers and half business school students revealed that none of the students took the class for technical abilities, but rather to understand what it means to be human, what meaning and life are, and what creates a meaningful life.
“the class itself was a very hybrid oriented class half engineers half business school students and the idea was if you could start to understand what is actually human well-being when and why did we get it wrong might we actually design technology in ways that are really different um that might mitigate negative unintended consequences might u maximize the chance that human elevation could actually happen. What would that look like? Um one of the students uh we asked them always you know why do you take the class and um not one of them said that they were taking it for the technical abilities um but they really wanted to understand what does it mean to be human one wrote I'm taking the class to better understand what is meaning what is life and what creates a meaningful life”
Beautiful moments are not always positive—there is crying and hard discussions and challenging conversations. But the power of beautiful moments is that you can have a beautiful moment emerging from a very hard conversation, leaving feeling somehow aligned rather than split.
“you know beauty by the way is not always positive. Like there's a lot of crying or hard discussions or challenging conversations. I'm not saying it's polyiana. It is not. That's the beauty about these beautiful moments is that you can have a beautiful moment out of a very hard conversation, but you leave feeling somehow aligned.”
What constitutes happiness and what brings fulfillment shifts dramatically every five to ten years across the lifespan, so success requires being open to discovering new sources of meaning rather than assuming happiness is a fixed target.
“what actually lights us up, what brings us happiness, what's actually correlated with deeper sense of happiness is shifting really dramatically. Every five or 10 years we're changing in such fundamental ways”
Students report using AI primarily for ideation and augmentation of thinking rather than elimination of cognitive thinking, suggesting AI can be designed as a cognitive partner that enhances rather than replaces human reasoning.
“when you say okay well why are you using um uh AI to help um you know a lot of it is ideiation a lot of is helping or coaching or thinking of these technology tools in ways that augment don't necessarily um eliminate cognitive thinking. Now we can debate this a lot um but at least um from a self-report and wordcloud perspective there's a lot of ideiation that comes along with this.”
At any given moment, a person has a choice between actions and ways of showing up that either move them closer to their authentic spirit or further away from it, giving them real agency in aligning with their core self.
“I love this quote which is at any moment you have a choice to make that either leads you closer to your spirit or further away from it.”
When love and grace exist in relationships, they enable more thoughtful and compassionate responses even in difficult situations, allowing people to move from reactivity (anger, blame) to growth-oriented frames.
“when love exists, grace uh follows. And so the question is when while AI cannot bridge all of our differences or heal our deepest wounds, it can help us to show up with more grace.”
Connection is fundamentally about the act of approaching someone with love—about seeing others, making them feel valued, and being seen in return.
“this act of seeing others, making others feel valued, being seen in return. Um I use these terms love and connection very sort of inner uh uh in ways that are very interchangeable. Um ultimately connection is really about the act of approaching someone with love.”
Seeing if you feel authentic when you enter a room is a practical test of whether you're living aligned with your values; if you're uncertain whether to take a risk, taking the risk is valuable because at minimum it creates a meaningful story.
“when you go into a room, see if you feel authentic. Um, if you're wondering whether to take a risk, take that risk. Even when it feels uncertain, it will always be at least a good funny story.”
Boldness is not about being courageous, perfect, or strong all the time; it is about being open to change and having the conviction to manifest your authentic self in the world you want to inhabit.
“what's really important about boldness is to understand it's not about being courageous. Um it's really just about being open to change... having the conviction to manifest um that authentic version of yourself in the world in which you want to inhabit is in fact what is bold.”
The guiding principle 'seek to surprise yourself, stretch out on the edges of all of your dimensionality' encourages people to push boundaries and explore new aspects of themselves.
“I talk a little bit in the talk about this idea of a guiding principle is seek to surprise yourself. Stretch out on the edges of all of your dimensionality. Seek to surprise yourself.”
Patty Poppy, CEO of PG&E, practices leadership with love by refusing to maintain entourage/hierarchical distance and instead affirming 'You are my people' to staff, which is exemplified through signature stories that illuminate what it means to lead with love as a guiding principle.
“Patty Poppy, the remarkable CEO of PG&E, uh came in, what was it like two weeks ago, um to talk about leading with love. What does that look like? And she has this great story. I'm not going to cold call you, but um where she doesn't walk around with an entourage. When she started becoming a CEO of PG&E, people are like, 'Where are your people? Where are your people?' And she's like, 'You are my people. You are we are together.' And these small little signature stories illuminate what does it mean to lead with love, one of her guiding principles.”
A friend of the speaker, Bill Mian, shared a story of asking a woman out in a Paris cafe during his divorce, being rejected, but demonstrating boldness through openness to transformation and trying new things.
“I had a friend he's since um passed on and he shared this story when I was teaching the power of story class. I have these 10 stories that all the students come in. Uh raise your hands if you took a power story class or the humor class. Okay, so you might remember this, but there was like a set of 10 signature stories that leaders would come in and um Bill Mian was one and and and the students would pick like I want to hear that story, that story. And so he shared this one story of he went through a divorce um had been married for quite a while. It was in Paris and it was the first moment that he saw a woman in a Parisian cafe and he got of the nerve to try and talk to her. Um he asked her out, she said no, but it was still very bold.”
In reconnecting with peers at a reunion, the opportunity to stay connected with people who documented, populated, and defined your life is valuable and addresses the deathbed regret of not maintaining connection.
“another reason to be honored to be here at this reunion is just this ability for you to be able to stay reconnected to all these people that that documented, they populated, that defined your life.”
Understanding one's own story and personal narrative is foundational to knowing who you are and therefore essential for acting authentically.
“How do we think about technology at this moment of time that allows you to be more you? And part of this is about knowing your own story.”
Teaching students about actual leaders through studying their signature stories and leadership principles creates intimate knowledge of those leaders that is more impactful than traditional case study or classroom presentation.
“the students actually get to know all of the guests... you can't imagine the ability and the thirst for the students to get to know um these these uh these leaders. And so then they do their own homework and they develop their own leadership handbooks of how they think these leaders lead and so they know them more.”
The speaker's AI bot for the class is now being used by people outside the class, indicating that the educational innovation is opening up and democratizing bespoke learning that was previously limited to enrolled students.
“not only that, but our bot now is used by um people not in the class, you know, because they're starting to use it. So the the the education is opening up”
The speaker's personal AI assistant knows her communication preferences: she likes to ask 'what do you love to do?' instead of 'what do you do?'; she likes to say 'I love what you did. Thank you' instead of generic thanks; she never signs off with 'best' because it's vague and impersonal; she signs off with 'love' or a heart or 'L' instead.
“Um my AI assistant knows that um I like to ask questions like instead of what do you do? what do you love to do? Um, it knows that. Uh, instead of saying, you know, thank you for your ideas, I like to say, I love what you did. Thank you. Um, I never like to sign off with best. Best is quite literally the worst. Um, there's nothing like I respect you vaguely that is like captured in best... I like how you like bookendid it. That's really like beautiful. Um, so and by fun fact, um, so not only is my family trained on always signing love, I remember Andy, my husband, he's like, 'I'm always going to sign off with love.' And I'm like, 'No, like you can just do like heart or like L.' And so he's like, 'Okay, but text to I'm' I'm like, 'Mhm.' Uh it got so bad that our kids started like in high school accidentally because they weren't like thinking while they were texting they would just send their their friends like love”
In a world increasingly shaped by systems that predict, optimize, and calculate, authenticity makes humans unpredictable in the best way—and technology should be used to enhance what is true to us rather than replace it with algorithmic predictions.
“In a world increasingly shaped by systems that predict and optimize and calculate this idea of authenticity makes us unpredictable in the best way. How do we use technology in fact to be able to enhance what is true to us?”
AI can help identify previously unsolvable problems across domains (hunger, inequality, education, deforestation, climate) and enable students to boldly tackle societal challenges they might otherwise consider intractable.
“what some of the biggest challenges that our previous students in the AI class said you will see that those biggest unsolvable problems were all over the map. They came from this idea of um hunger, inequality, um education, learning, this opportunity to think about deforestation, climate, how do we actually tackle these societal problems?”
Creating custom AI bots trained on course material, signature stories, and teaching style allows teaching teams to automate repetitive grading feedback, freeing 25+ hours per semester for one-on-one personalized connection with each of 80 students.
“we've been able to take our extra time and meet with a 100% of our 80 students. So we've met with like over 25 hours of one-on-one time at Koopa with our students because of the ability to sort of shift our time”
In the 'Sustainable Human Behavior' class, students share beautiful moments daily in WhatsApp groups, analyze collective data for sentiment and patterns, and use AI (Dolly) to generate visual art representing the beautiful experiences, creating a data-to-art pipeline.
“what we do in our class, it's a compressed class in three weeks, is we have the students uh, get in groups of four... they share every day a beautiful moment with each other... So they go through the Stanford campus experiencing these beautiful moments. And so we pull together that data set and they start to analyze it... we'll take all of that data and we'll put it into Dolly and they start to create art and visual images of what is a beautiful experience.”
The speaker observed that when she asks alumni at a reunion 'when you were here or in Littlefield, what were you like?' and points out current colleagues who are now different people (represented by photos of Naomi's friends), it illustrates how 'we all know, especially when we have kids, how quickly things change. The opportunity to be authentic and bold and loving is so short-lived.'
“There are people here. If you all just close your eyes and think, 'Oh my god, when I was here or in Littlefield, um what was I like?'... And these are all the new beings, these new beings since graduating here. Um, new humans that actually created. So, we all know, especially when we have kids, how quickly things change. The opportunity to be authentic and bold and loving is so short-lived. We have to embrace this moment.”
One TA, Obby, said the best way to change lives, organizations, and the world is to change the moment—emphasizing that meaningful change happens at the granular, present moment level.
“one of our TAs, Obby, he said in a talk here at Stamford, he's like, 'I don't know if it's change lives, change organizations, change the world, but maybe the best way to do it is to change the moment.'”
When asked if they use AI to help with assessments, students self-report at only 15%, but the speaker believes the actual rate is 100%, indicating either pervasive underreporting or a gap between student perception of 'cheating' vs 'augmenting cognition'.
“we asked them first you know like how many of you are using AI to help assessments like shockingly I'm sure that 15% were lying. Um there's just no way that that is not 100%.”
Personalized AI tools can help people show up with more grace in interpersonal interactions—operationalizing one's values (e.g., signing off with 'love' instead of 'best', asking 'what do you love to do?' instead of 'what do you do?')—because while AI cannot bridge all differences or heal deep wounds, it can express love in ways true to us.
“while AI cannot bridge all of our differences or heal our deepest wounds, it can help us to show up with more grace... personalized AI can tools can help you show up thoughtfully. Um my AI assistant knows that um I like to ask questions like instead of what do you do? what do you love to do?”
Essentially all students use AI to help with assessments (self-reports of ~15% are implausibly low), and much of this use is ideation, coaching, and thinking support that augments rather than eliminates cognitive work.
“how many of you are using AI to help assessments like shockingly I'm sure that 15% were lying... there's just no way that that is not 100%... a lot of it is ideiation... in ways that augment don't necessarily um eliminate cognitive thinking.”
Human verification—proving you are actually a human rather than something pretending to be one—is becoming a bigger concern.
“Human verification is something that actually are you actually um the human that you sort of pretend to be. That is actually something that's becoming a bigger thing.”
The speaker grew up listening to her mother, a 50-year hospice volunteer, share stories at the dinner table about people who were dying, which shaped her understanding of regret, authenticity, and living well.
“My mom has been a hospice volunteer for uh, 50 years. And so I grew up uh having sharing stories around the dinner table of of people uh dying, you know, what they wish for because it's her job in order to sort of listen to them, see if she can make those wishes um come alive and just be with them, holding their hand.”
The speaker became a death doula two years ago and has been honored to be present in moments of crossing over and to support those holding the hands of people who are dying.
“I became a death doula, fun fact. Um two years ago. And so a lot of this was um your role as a death doula, like a birth doula, is to actually be present and support in moments of crossing over. And so I've been honored enough in the last two years um to be able to um help not necessarily always in the actual transition but in helping those who are holding the hand of um you know someone who actually is crossing over.”
Taking a risk even when uncertain is worthwhile because, at minimum, it will become a good funny story that colors your life.
“if you're wondering whether to take a risk, take that risk. Even when it feels uncertain, it will always be at least a good funny story.”
When we are better at work and experience boldness, we have the ability to achieve breakthroughs, many of which are happening at Stanford across different domains.
“When we're better at work, we're bolder. So when we aim for boldness, there's an ability to have breakthroughs that I think are really exciting. So many of them are happening here at Stamford.”
The speaker created an 'all-nighter' to prepare this talk specifically for the Stanford reunion audience, driven by desire to connect with them, the honor of speaking, and ability to discuss four classes and new research.
“I have not done an all-nighter since college. I don't know what it feels like. I like you listen to Huberman like [0:32] sleep is important. Um and yet it's somehow fueled by the desire to connect with you, the honor to be here with you today. Um the ability to talk about four different classes that we teach here at the GSB along with brand new research.”