Unpacking Uncomfortable Truths
Summary
While everyone's talking about AI taking our jobs, what aren't we talking about? What about how it might be impacting critical thinking or our ability to hold nuance. The space to sit with a question instead of prompting our way past it. The permission to not have an opinion on everything, immediately, publicly. For so long, research has helped us hold contradictions, interrogate bias, and be comfortable not knowing yet. But in a world that increasingly rewards speed and certainty—where a new tool or update drops every hour—are those skills quietly under threat, and what does that mean for all of us? This talk makes space for slightly uncomfortable truths: what it means to accept you can't be an expert in everything. What if you don't want to make AI your entire personality? How to stay authentic when everything sounds the same. How to look after yourself through layoffs and uncertainty. And why caring a little less about some things might be how to care more about what matters. Part coach, part design leader, part person who is deeply interested in humankind—I don't have this figured out. But I do believe these are the conversations we're not making enough space for. So, let's do that. Together.
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