"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.
Brooks argues that AI's true value is not speed or productivity but its capacity to help us live more meaningful lives—deepening authenticity, boldness, and connection—and that the choice of whether AI flattens or amplifies our humanity is ours to make.
- Reflections on death and regret reveal authenticity, boldness, and love as the core dimensions of a well-lived life
- AI tools (custom bots, leadership handbooks, generative science, machine vision) can be designed to elevate human connection rather than replace it
- Research on emotional change over the lifespan and on beautiful moments shows humans can be deliberately guided toward richer, more memorable, pro-social lives
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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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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”
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.”
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”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”