Caring or Converting: Is AI Working For Us or On Us?

The apps in your pocket are built to keep you. A behavioral scientist explains how to tell when technology is caring for you and when it is quietly working you over.

Eden Brownell works at the intersection of behavioral science and AI. She started in theater, moved through the foster care system and public health, and now studies how the systems around us shape the choices we make. Rex Wallace sits down with her to pull apart one uncomfortable question: are the tools transforming our lives designed to help us, or to hold us in place?

They get into the difference between empathy and persuasion on a screen, why good design makes it easy to leave, the dark patterns hiding inside everyday apps, and what we lose when we hand off our ability to choose. Eden also shares something personal about connection, patience, and what AI can and cannot be for the people who use it.

If you lead a team, build a product, or care about the human on the other end of the technology, this one will stay with you.

In this episode:

• Why behavioral science has to lead AI, not follow it
• The difference between caring about members and caring about numbers
• Context beats character: designing for the person at their lowest
• The dark patterns we live with, from autoplay to the cancellation maze
• What we lose when we outsource our choices
• Connection, patience, and what a machine cannot be

Books mentioned: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, Grit by Angela Duckworth

The HumanUp Imperative explores human connection, leadership, and the future of how we work. Subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In a world increasingly shaped by technology, the Human Up Imperative explores the significance of human connection with each other, with the communities we serve, and perhaps most importantly, with ourselves. Join Rex Wallace and his guests as they discuss the ever-important role of authentic, meaningful connection in healthcare. It's time to human up.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Human Up Imperative. Hey, my guest today started her career in theater studying why fictional characters do what they do and make the choices they make. Turns out that was really good training for understanding why real humans do what they do and make the choices they make. We'll talk a bit about that. We'll also talk about how AI companies want to remove that burden of choice making from humans and maybe even thinking altogether. Please join me as we human up with Eden Brownell. Eden, so great to see you. Thanks for being on. And we will jump right in.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

It is a long time coming.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

For sure. We've talked about it for a while, yeah. So glad it it finally worked out. Hey, I uh for our listeners who who don't know you, let's kind of get into the first question of you know, you you work at this intersection of behavioral science and AI, which is super interesting to to me, especially especially today. I have to think that you are so busy with interesting projects, right? And just interesting work and and the things that you're being pulled into right now, which I know you're pulled into a lot too, which we'll talk about, but you know, these are two fields, behavioral science and AI, two fields that are, you know, both trying to predict and influence human behavior. How how did you end up? Okay, so t two questions actually. Number one, how did you end up here in this overlap? And and number two, when people are thinking about these two things, behavioral science and AI, arriving at an intersection at the same time, um i i it is it important that one of them proceeds before the other through the intersection, sort of for the you know, the sake of the experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yes, for the sake of experience. Yes, we'll get there. Um I have a lot of uh a lot of opinion on that order. So I uh yeah, I as you said I came in through theater, which surprises a lot of folks when I start there. Um but actually when I've talked to some other behavioral scientists, as I do, about how they came up, it's interesting to hear how, you know, the arts or things like that have influenced them. Um for me, yes, it was theater because I think it's just a reflection of human society anyway. Then I realized that I didn't want to stage design, I did not want to act. Um I was really just fascinated with the human. So I proceeded to do psychology and sociology and anthropology in undergrad. Uh, basically anything I could get my hands on as it related to human understanding. I then worked in the foster care system. I then had an uh I'd say empathy vacation because the work in the foster care system uh can definitely very quickly wear you out. Um make you think about what's next, make you think about um how broken the system is and if there's any place to repair it. So I spent time um waitressing and bartending, which also people think, oh, what's that's a little different. It was, but I say in also the good ways because it taught me a lot to um, well, I'd say um escalation response, uh client uh client workings. Um I think I just it's like a case study in B Sci, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

It's a case study in behavioral science.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

And and my um my manager at the time used to always kind of like I was the person, I was the waitress or the bartender that got sent in for those like trouble cases. Like they started mad and we really wanted to end happy. Um and so I um, you know, was just this this uh cheerful, cheerful person that I really understood what it was for them to come into a restaurant and you know, if you know your table's delayed, if the things like that's part of the experience. And I think you know that brought me back to theater in many ways. You know, you could sort of stage design the restaurant as well. How could you sort of improve uh those end outcomes? So I got really good at that without really knowing what all of that was, and ended up doing then my master's in public health at Boston University in social and behavioral sciences. And this really what connected me here is after that time in foster care, after sort of seeing um more of the world and uh the world's problems, I I think I then realized I I knew I wanted to still help people, um, but I had to be at a bigger scale. Um and because I did feel so much was broken in the system. So I uh ended up doing that uh MPH there. And the the real question for me, which maybe also was, you know, as everyone thinks about, you know, what maybe happened as I was young and things and you know, growing up that really led to my my whole journey. I really was interested in, you know, how do you help someone uh make a change that's in their own interest, but is very hard to make. So I went uh, you know, from conversational IVR design at Eliza um back in the day, you know, it's uh I think CotiVity now. Um I then did NLP design at Impulse and was part of their engagement strategy and behavioral science team. Um, and now I am applied science at Zivian and uh work on uh some of my some other projects under Empathize Labs. So somewhere in that process of trying to understand how do you move behavior, understanding difficult things like um prenatal patients, Medicaid members, a lot of what the system talks past through all that, I really realized that at you know at some point, A, I stopped being just a tool for me and it became the thing that I wanted to study because I was seeing the way it was being used to either rightfully or wrongfully change behavior. And so that kind of brings us to your second question about the order. 1000% um behavioral science has to lead. Um, and for those who are listening, you're you might be thinking, and we get this a lot sort of in the healthcare space, behavioral science is very frequently confused with behavioral health. And so that you start thinking, you know, behavioral health, mental health, you know, that string. Behavioral science is the study, is really the study of human behavior, human experience through time. What are the things that sort of exist amongst us that are known, known facts? You know, we are a social animal is one of the biggest ones. And what I see is systems manipulating the social animal, and that is where, you know, I am now in a place that I want to do work to, you know, no longer just apply AI to a broken system and scale that, but really, how do you look within the system at the human moments, the breakdown, the burnout, um, the struggles, and how do you work on fixing that? Um, because if that's not fixed and we know there's a lot on uh broken in our healthcare system, then you're just gonna ultimately automate the dysfunction.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Nobody wants that. And you know, when you you a lot a lot of what you said makes me think about several different things, but just to maybe drill down into one or two, and I never really thought about this, but I I know maybe just a handful of behavioral scientists. And uh and you know them too, it's the same people in the in the in the in the space who who are most kind of well well known, at least in our healthcare space, right? To get into behavioral science, do you kind of need to be you mentioned empathy, like you took an empathy vacation, right? Um, after the foster care system, but but uh I'm kind of imagining anybody who works in behavioral science might be empathic or an empath or or you know, like like sensitive and like really interested and curious about human connection and not just hopefully not just hey, I'm gonna learn this so that I can sell more stuff, or you know, you know what I mean? I mean behavioral science, I mean a lot of people in my space think of it as Jedi Mind tricks, right? Yes, and we're gonna we're gonna hire a behavioral scientist and deploy some Jedi mind tricks so members will close their care gaps, right? Like like that is so not it, but it is a little bit of the perception sometimes from people. But I'm I'm I'm I'm curious, I guess where I'm going is is is what what pulled you into it? Because you you you kind of mentioned um you kind of mentioned helping people make choices or something like that, but but is that what pulled you into actual behavioral science after you were already kind of working in sociology and psychology, etc.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Yeah, so I it's interesting because it it was you know, I had taken I'd done the MPH and then I had been at Eliza and I was working, you know, at the time I started as a health engagement designer. Um I gotta say, like Eliza, I could throw out some names people in the industry will probably know, but you know, I loved Eliza. I did a lot of work with Eliza back in the day. I love them.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

I was so impressed.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I it was, and it was a great place to be. Um I learned under, I feel like people that you know are still in the industry and still are doing amazing work. It feels weird to be like, you know, these were my mentors, but you know, in a way, you know, I I had access, and I think Health Engagement Designer might still be the best title I've ever had, and like a you know, a bit true to what it was. Um but I think it was during that, you know, where I was really within the healthcare system and I had done even during my MPH a fellowship with um Healthcare for All in Boston, which is a nonprofit that's really geared towards getting Medicaid, uh getting people that are eligible for Medicaid signed up for Medicaid to know that they have these things. Um and so I think with that, um, you know, of like what kind of kept drawing me, um, especially in within healthcare, is like the vulnerable moments. Um, and I think that sort of like a health crisis, you know, the sort of the loneliness, the fear, um, the the friction with our system when you actually try to do anything healthcare. I think we could, you know, monitor most of the US population um heart rate and start talking about their healthcare. And it's it's gonna skyrocket because we are in a very messy and stressful healthcare environment. But um I think this the part of that is that, you know, when someone's in this health crisis, they are in that vulnerable moment and they're, you know, also the most open and most suggestible. So a lot of our design language treats that openness as opportunity and calls it engagement. Um and so, as you said, you know, the the teams that are trying to hit, you know, hire the behavioral scientists to come in and and work on engagement. Um and so the guardrail almost nobody builds for is honest about what the thing is doing to you. So is it trying to help me or is it trying to keep me? And when you think about engagement numbers, are they about the outcome or are they about like you clicked a number? And so, you know, at these times when you think about someone who you're saying is engaged and they might be at a very vulnerable moment, it might look identical from, you know, for for you, there it looks like they're engaging in the things um that are happening, but it's it's not the same, you know. You it's really uh speaks a lot to you know the engagement industry and and what they're tracking towards. And I think that's where you need not the hand-wavy behavioral science, you need the behavioral science that's actually about behavior change. We're not gonna just slap on social proof, we're not gonna just slap on, you know, uh one of the 800 very much quotable biases that, you know, healthcare keeps kind of ringing to. We're gonna think about what's most appropriate by starting with the human experience. And a lot of the time, um, the different, you know, the again, the system that we're in doesn't really leave time for that. But when we're thinking about AI now and how really empathy and persuasion can look like the same thing on a screen, but one cares a lot after what happens after you close that app. The other just needs you to click something in that app, and that job's done. And that to me is, you know, the ultimate sort of question or like reframe when people are looking at vendors in this space is you know, do they care? I think you know, it's a very old, it's an old question, but like, you know, are we caring about the members or are we caring about the numbers?

SPEAKER_02 12:22

Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned, especially when we're dealing with vulnerable populations, right? Uh or a or even just a member in a vulnerable state, like like you referenced. Curious your thoughts on, you know, as we talk about AI and sort of this this intersection. You know, Claude or Anthropic has this resident philosopher, right? Who her job is to embed this sense of morality into Claude, which I'm fascinated with, just kind of her job, and and um I'm not aware of any other AI companies that are doing that, so you know, it it helps it it definitely makes me put anthropic a little bit higher on on the you know preferred that's that's who I want to work with, right? But that that's just me. I'm I'm curious your thoughts on that. Does that really make a difference, or is that you know, are are you are you skeptical about that, about her her effectiveness? Just thoughts on the need the need for a role like that um and and is it making a difference or not?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah, yeah. So also I feel like I'm a little bit of a fangirl. Uh the the philosopher uh you flagged, it's uh as I say it, I'm thinking, you know, the philosopher's stone here, but yeah, yeah. It's Amanda Askell. So uh she um yeah leads the character work at anthropic. Um her approach is like all about virtue and ethics, training values and judgment in rather than sort of bolting that on as a filter at the end. So I think that work, that beginning work and framing it, you know, the company treating ethics as a design decision rather than a cleanup job. So now, you know, you're seeing struggles come out of some of the other systems, and there's gonna be fallout no matter what. But were you already thinking about it and preparing for it and designing for it up here, or are you just getting the problems down here and now you're in reactive? Um, and you know, that's just following a lot of patterns in some of these systems where instead of being proactive and trying to fix it, it's we're just living in reaction. And when we're dealing with technology at the scale of human impact that we are, it's really disappointing actually to not see more of her role in more places because it's it is changing behavior, it's changing how people work, it's changing how you think, uh, how you react. If you're up late at night and uh and and talking to it like a therapist, it's it's changing things and and to not have it, I think. Well, it's just it's just sort of uh again, you know, uh how much do you care about the humans, you know? Um and and maybe they're you know framing it around Claude and and doing that for the own kind of PR move, but it does make me happy to see it. I will say I don't think that it's not happening at other AI companies. Um I would say it's happening at a lot of smaller ones that are really thinking about the human condition sort of and like the human experience ending up with AI. Um, and in some of those use cases, I think it's you know, really trying to think of really AI as more of that partner um and knowing that there is sort of you know a two-way relationship there that that they which relationship I'll get yelled at by some of the AIs um out there because it's just technology, but I think we're seeing out of a lot of research that you know you do start to train your AI, you know, people say, my Claude, I taught this, I skilled this. So you know, the anthropomorphization, yeah, my least favorite wordsite is is there, it's happening.

SPEAKER_02 15:49

Yeah. You know, and these these AI, many AI specialists, right, don't don't don't necessarily have a behavioral science background. And I'm curious, you know, since you are coming from that world and now you're working a lot with AI, obviously, you know, what's what's what's one insight from behavioral science that you kind of wish every AI company deployed into its products or at least was taking into account when they when they do this work.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, um I'd say, you know, there's a lot in behavioral science where where um it starts with, you know, humans are irrational. I I struggle with it. I think humans are meeting their experiences. Um and I'd say most of the time people are not their best selves when they make meet your product. Um I think the mental model of developers is, you know, Carrie is that rational user, is you know, they're alert and they're weighing options and you know, they're thinking through what they're talking to A, you know, what what they're talking with AI about. You know, they like to think, you know, this like they understand all the things and there's and there's levels to that. But I think the person who actually showed up some, you know, show sometimes to these products, you know, they're tired, they're distracted, they're scared, you know, they're 18 tabs deep uh at 11 p.m. Um not to say that that hasn't happened to me in the recent uh, you know, like past as I'm I'm gonna do I have a baby, yes. So you know, but so you know, behavioral science is really known for decades that context beats character. So design for the person actually at their lowest, because that's who you are likely to meet in some of these scenarios, especially as it relates to healthcare. And if your product is only working on a rested, rational user, I mean it it just really, really won't work. Um especially again in healthcare where people are just immediately cranked up as soon as they they think about it.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

I think that's so interesting. You know, I think you know, we talk a lot about, and I think you just had a a blog post about this title at least. But you know, we say meet them where they are, but you know, it's it's like we need to add meet them where they are right now, right? Like we we build these personas of people based on their high-level demographic information that's so high level, but but you know, we we are such complex beings and we're going through you you mentioned earlier, I mean how healthcare is you know a complicated, you know, stressful space, but life in general right now is right. You know, we had a guest last year on here who who talked about you know, we're in a VUCA world, right? A volatile, and I'm gonna forget what VUCA stands for, but but just kind of ambiguous, complex, right? Um uh volatile world where we really it's really stressful. And uh you know, and and as members are as our health plan members, that's who we're talking about today, really, right? Uh primarily in our space. You know, they're going through things every day. And and I think what you just said is at 11 o'clock at night and when they might be responding to something, and how do we you know how do we uh how do we account for that? And could and I love what you said, assume they're sort of in their lowest uh spot, right? Uh which I feel like is not happening right now when a lot of these a lot of this information is is being shared. You know, you you talked about this a little bit earlier, but I want to ask you really directly and and see if you have more to add. You know, are the are the tools that are transforming life right now as we know it, are the are they more focused on caring for us or converting us or conditioning us or something like that in your mind?

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah, uh I think that's an area I'm as someone who's you know w working very much in the in this space, it's it's something that's that stays with me a lot and I think has become even more clear now facing a technology that can take things that could be very manipulative and um you know scale it to a crazy degree. So I think you know, this the caring or converting is is really the question underneath all of this and in a lot of the conversation around behavioral science and AI is you know the tools that seem to care about us are are they, you know, are they caring or are they converting? You usually can't really tell from inside the experience, and that's part of the problem. The um the real trust question is whether you can tell who it's working for. And so when you think about like some of the the things that a company might be responsible for, of like, okay, we drove them to the app, but like what was the purpose of driving them to the app? And when they showed up and they wanted to ask if they had a benefit, you know, with that, you know, how easy did the app make that for the person? And did the app take into consideration that they um have low literacy levels or things like that? Is you know, so when it sometimes the action happens and then it's just like, okay, well, what now? Like what good was that? I downloaded your app, I'm using my data on your app. What's what was the point for it? And so I think some of the tell on this carrying or converting is in the design itself. Good design is gonna make it easy to leave at as soon as you join. And so, you know, we can think about this in other places. The the other kind, uh the maybe the the ones that are there to convert is that they hide you join um it in a simple way. It makes it really simple to join and then it hides the exit. And I think I'm seeing this more and more it with with things that I sign up for, is it's making it really tricky to be able to exit. So, you know, Uber Eats, they're you know, they're nudging you. Um, I get nudges around mealtimes, like it, you know, when I might be thinking about eating, they nudge you like with, you know, it's almost like you're still at the store with like those like checkout items add to your cart, making it bigger. You know, Netflix is like starting the next episode before you even decide what to watch. I get like, is again someone with ADHD on there. I'm like, what? Oh my god, I just had five stories happen. Um, you know, Amazon is burying their prime cancellation so deep that employees actually require. Referred to it as the Iliad flow. Um, and last year they paid two and a half billion dollars to the FTC over it. So there's a lot happening here. Um we don't even want to get in into dating apps because they're really only making money if you stay single because they still want you on it. And so it's not to say any of these people are evil people, but they're creating situations built to keep you in place. And it's ironic kind of thinking about this and and what's happened in the past few weeks for myself is I was at a conference last week and I was actually Angela Duckworth was there, which for folks yeah, yeah, grit who doesn't love it, and uh, she was there to talk about her her new book. And her whole argument is that you can change your situation, that you have agency over it. These products that we're talking about as we're thinking about carrying or converting, these products are designed to take that back, to build the safe situation around you so the easy move is always the one that serves them. So, um again, as we think about you know, the Uber Eats and the Netflix and there, it almost feels like they're in this bandwagon against you because it's sit on the couch, keep ordering the food, don't think about getting up and you know, working out, or or maybe you get, you know, your Apple Watch says, like, oh, you've been sitting for a while, but that just irritates you and you keep sitting. And so, you know, as we you know think about it, the carrying or converting comes down to a simple test, I think. Does the design widen what you can do, or is it quietly narrowing it? And you know, then it's sort of, is it helping me or is it hurting me?

SPEAKER_02 23:41

I'm yeah, I I see it every day, right? And and I've read Nudge, you know, and some of the you know, some of the popular behavioral science-ish books, right? And I see things every day that I I know I know companies are I usually know. I don't I I'm sure I don't always know, right? I'm I'm sure, I'm sure I'm oblivious to signals that are being given to me by different companies or apps or devices or whatever. But you, like I have to think you, you know, you you you're pretty eyes wide open, I would, I would imagine, right? But most people in your position are working for a company, right, to to help them at l I guess at a minimum understand their consumers, their their customers better, right? How can we serve them better by understanding them better? And you know, and if you and you know, you you said it's sort of all in the engagement or the the intent, the design. I mean, if you if you move it all the way to the bad side of the spectrum, it's people who are just just focused on how do we, you know, how do we get more revenue, how do we keep these customers stuck to us, which is very self self-serving. If you were if a behavioral science scientist was available for a consumer instead of the comp so I can go hire an attorney, a doctor, right, a therapist, like these various things, but I wouldn't like I would never go hire a behavioral scientist. But companies that are trying to get my attention are employing behavioral scientists. How would your role be different if you were working for a consumer instead of a company? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah, I I think that's when you know it really more switches to uh you're actually doing more of advocacy work. You actually are thinking about the human. And and the problem, I'll say, is when you're at organizations that aren't working for the human. And so I think you as an empathizer, you start to feel that. You feel that disconnect. It's maybe, you know, you're, you know, even you look at health plans, you're seeing their mission statement, what they're saying to do, but then when you look at what they're tracking, it says a different story because it's really not getting to that human impact. You know, we care about health outcomes, we care about this, da-da-da-da. Well, then you have to show me the health outcomes. Um, and I think, you know, as um we think about behavioral scientists, I think this is why it's important we get more in because I think what I see at a lot of companies is the the folks that are in the roles are um that are really, you know, in that, you know, behavior change. They're they're a lot of times they're just being filled with marketers. And so, you know, at the end of the day, marketers are thinking about marketing and making money and like the story's different. The it's you know, it's conversion, it's it's different, uh, you know, it's the personas, it's the things, it's it's not as much in that like system level thinking, and it's not as much in that human experience thinking. And so, you know, I think if I think where I'm at now and you know, working at um, you know, like civilian health and and what we're doing there, again, it's another place where I'm really, you know, attached to what the company's mission is and and knowing that at the end of the day, we really are trying to help many individuals' actual human experience, you know, so that it can end up in best better patient outcomes. You know what I mean? So it's really if you're focused on the human experience, I think you uh you'll know it, you'll feel it, you'll feel better about your day to day. I think when you when you're not, and when you're like the squeaky wheel in the room, you'll feel that too. Um and I think sometimes that is what needs to be poked at a little more. Um and and it's it's hard to it's hard to do that when you're in a at an organization.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yeah, and I and I know I'm I'm asking questions that may make it seem like I'm not a fan of behavioral science. That's not the case at all. Okay, I I've okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

I've uh I have my in and outs here all all the time.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

You you I I do I do I do too with the fire roll even. So one of my favorite authors these days is this guy, Rutger Bregman, who's a historian, and he But he he he talks a lot about how today, like, you know, some of the smartest people in the world spend their careers trying to get more followers for a company, right? Like on social media, like that's what they're doing. Like, is it is it really meaningful? Is it you know, you know, or you know, compared to is the point he's making. So like I I kind of question you know ever everything these days. And he's not a fan of consultants like me either, by the way. He's he thinks we're wasting our lives. But no, but I uh I've seen so much good work from beh from behavioral science around um you know, I think about like uh like um choice architecture, right? So yeah, really, really designing something in a way that's less confusing for a member so that they know exactly where the call to action is, what the call to action is. It's not buried at the bottom of a you know, four-paragraph letter um or something. So there it's such important work. And uh speaking of choice, I'm curious your thoughts on because I I feel like at least AI is trying to take choice away from us, right? It's trying to and you even mentioned like Netflix even is telling you or like like like um spooling up your next show before you've even decided what to what to watch. They're they're making the choice for you so you don't have to, right? What happens when we outsource our ability to make a choice?

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Yeah, I think I think we lose a lot. I think you know, agents are are out there, Claude's out there, you know, and they're and they're really like ultimately yeah, promising to kind of take the load off deciding for you. Some of that that agency is some of that that choice. But choosing is how you, you know, again to go back to my theater roots, it's how you stay the protagonist of your own life. Like hand it off and you save time and you stop practicing something that that really matters. Um and so it's I think that's a struggle. Um they you know it's it's deciding what is automatable and what isn't. Um and I think that there are places where AI does make sense and it and it's helping me um to to do more in my life. So I I'd say I use AI a lot. No, I I mean it it's it's it's useful, and but there are places I won't use it. And what I ultimately am using it for is to have more life in my life, more time spent on in my actual life and maybe a little less on work because I'm able to have that extra time. And if I'm automating it, automating something, it's hopefully, especially in a work capacity, I'm automating a thing that gives me more time to have more thinking time, like to actually, you know, be creative, to actually think about the human experience. And I think that is a way that I see AI being really helpful for humans, is to give us back some of that creative agency. But if it's just being applied to take away your choices, and you know, a lot of people say, you know, that take your jobs and things like that, you know, that's you know, that's not improving the human experience at all. Um, and so I think, you know, it's it's really at the end of the day when you when you think about AI, too many companies are thinking, you know, I now my you know worker can be at 200% because I expect them to be using AI and just like unstoppable, and I don't need to hire another person. And so I think some of the struggle is, you know, then what happens to that person that's working at 200% and what choices have they outsourced that they shouldn't be outsourcing? And that's I think, you know, that's a big struggle right now.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Yeah, I think what you said is important. I think uh in and shout out to Steph and our producer too, because he he talks to me about, you know, if you if you leverage AI in the right ways, right, like you you can create more uh zen in your life by taking those tasks away that you can automate, right? And and that are just kind of burdensome on you right now. So it's all yeah, I like the fact that you said you you don't there there are areas of your life that you that you don't use it. Maybe so so you know our theme of this show, right, is really human connection, connection with other people, with our communities, and with ourselves. I'm curious, you know, what does human connection mean to you personally?

SPEAKER_01 32:25

Yeah, uh and this one uh this was good because uh I've seen other episodes, so I knew something like it would be coming. Um we, you know, obviously had our chats before. So I'd say it's it's twofold. And the first one's gonna surprise people. Uh and it's a little, you know, harder on this one to answer cleanly, but uh I've that's some of the honesty coming through. I study connection for a living. I study human behavior, and one of the more surprising things lately is um, especially as it relates to AI, is how much relief I felt being understood by something that isn't a person. So people are like, oh no, oh no, she's fallen crazy to the AI. But I have ADHD. People watching this can probably like recognize the tells. Um, you know, I have to have my notes, otherwise we'd be, you know, talking about something very off-put right now. But I think in a scatter, everything connects to everything, and AI really met that without the flicker of impatience that you learn to watch for in other people. I think anyone with ADHD or who's neurodivergent has those moments where the way you think, the way you talk, the way you speak, it just doesn't, it doesn't land as uh as well with some people and you can see irritation. I think AI made me feel like that was actually like a good trait to have because it was it was saying how I, you know, was connecting all of these dots across systems that really should be connected. And I think when we think about the human experience, sometimes we too often think about it in isolation of all the other connections. And so I think that was um kind of a gut punch because it showed me what the machine also can't do. Um it really can't be inconvenienced by me and stay away. You know, it's it's it's someone uh, you know, it's it's sort of unlimited patience and it doesn't cost that AI anything. And so human connection right now is looking like being at part being at home with my partner um on his leave since we just welcomed our our first baby. And you know, thank you so much. Um she is like just the biggest blessing. Um but it's also made me think more about you know the worlds we're turning over to the next generation in a way I just really didn't expect to hit me like it has. Um and so you know, we're all the way in that, and you know, AI is out here, and I'm just I'm just thinking about how to you can't put it back in the box, but how do we um try to improve whatever AI is, you know, that's working and touching uh human spaces. And I think understanding the patience that it has versus you know the patience of those in our lives, I think that's that's some of the point is valuing the people in your life that that have that patience to sit with you. AI is doing it for free. It's a nice, it's a nice person to have to listen, but who are the people in your life too that are that are having that patience and and how do you value that more and that time more?

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Um on your on your your new addition to the family, you were out for a little bit of time. I imagine did you come back and I have to think AI kind of exploded while you were out, but um because it's moving so fast that it felt like you you were out 10 years instead of a few weeks, probably?

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Oh yeah, yeah. And I think you know, it was it was actually really hard to be out during it all um because I just had this feeling that I was falling behind. Um I'm someone that loves work in the degree because again, I want to be doing work that ends up helping people. Um and so, you know, it's a different way that you can get burnt out, but um, I think the, you know, sort of seeing the world in many ways feel like it was falling apart. Um, you know, we know the, you know, how loneliness is impacting the world. We know now AI is coming in and people are using it to fill gaps in loneliness to like good or bad degrees, you know. I think I felt like a little like there was degrees of like, oh, can I do anything? Like the world's going to hell. A lot of us, you know, a lot of people are saying that already. And then, you know, it was also just a really great time to actually be like, I I need to disconnect from this. Um, and so, you know, being able to be with Grace and actually kind of turn it off. I I very much liked had to end up even, you know, turning off all the work messages, turning off the things, yeah, because I I just was like, you can't live there right now. And then coming back, it was yeah, what the heck happened? Um and I think AI helps me through it too. Um you know, it's like AI is can scare you, but in it can also help you in your overwhelm. So uh as we as you think about like the Claude and the creating skills, I actually used Claude to basically say, I've been out this whole time, you know, look through company documents, like what have I missed on XYZ project? Uh, it's a skill that I ended up helping um and sharing with others at my company, not just from a maternity mindset, but from just a being out mindset. I think any of us also will say, in today's age, you really don't disconnect. You really are so worried about, you know, if I take a day off, if I take that week vacation with my with my family, if I have a child, God forbid, and I am out for months, do will I lose my place? And uh I feel like that's that's hard as a mother. I didn't expect it to get me emotional, but you know, I think that's a place AI can help, you know, and and how can you again use it to give you more time instead of me being up crazy hours trying to get back to work? I used AI to help me get back to work. And and that's where I'm interested in in working is how do you create more solutions like that that seem really simple on on the front of it, but if they can get people more time back in their life, you know, that's that's what I want to be a part of.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Yeah, yeah. Is there is there one thing that you would like to see change about the the space that you're in?

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Yeah, I mean, I think like we said it, you know, there are a lot of behavioral scientists that are bad actors, um, that are you know using dark patterns, that are taking advantage of those vulnerable moments. Um and that really requires therefore more what I like to say, good behavioral scientists in the room where AI, especially in the rooms and in the technology, and you know, at the tables, at the companies where AI is getting pointed at people. We need good behavioral scientists in there and and and we need the empathy, we need the moral compass that feels somewhat lost in today's day and age. And you know, and we also need there to be a visible path for people who want to be in those realms of how to get into that. So a lot of the time behavioral scientists train in academic settings, and the applied route is pretty undocumented. You're seeing a switch now. And I where I work with a lot of women in in this space and and and behavioral scientists in general, is there's a lot of interest for academics to get into applied settings. They're they're they have this wealth of knowledge, they've studied, they've done the experiments, and now it's you know, how do you take what you've what you've learned in the academic settings and route it into actual human work? And that's where I'm really excited. Um I have actually decided like have been, I'm gonna be leading the Boston chapter of B sci organization. So more to come for people in the Boston area, but um, I really want to make it easier for younger scientists to have a door and also to build that human lens that so many of these companies um in now and all the coming years are really gonna need.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

That's awesome. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah. Let's finish up with two easy questions. One, what's what's one book everyone should read?

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Okay, so I know I had one uh I said easy, maybe not easy. Yeah, yeah, it's no, it should be easy. So this one I did put uh Oliver uh Berkman's 4,000 weeks. Um and so it's it's really closest to the area that I'm I'm really focusing on. Um, but what do we do with finite time in a world that keeps prominging us more of it? And I think that that's really relevant right now as we live in what we've talked about forever, the attention economy. As we we do have to be mindful of everything that's going on. And I think we also need to be reoriented to like how little time we actually have here, um, as well as as some companies will, you know, sort of seek to take it from you.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

I I read it either last year or year before. Great book. My yeah, my my partner write read it and she recommended it to me. It but yeah, echo, echo that for sure. How can uh how can people find you and follow you if they want to learn more about Eden and kind of what you're what you're thinking?

SPEAKER_01 41:26

Yeah, um I'd say LinkedIn is uh is is easiest. I'm there, uh I'm kind of active posting about all things behavioral science and AI. I'm trying to connect some of the patterns, you know, and the people on there that I'm seeing that I think can, you know, really make a difference in some of these uh spaces. And um yeah, I'm always open for chat. So yeah, definitely uh come find me. And if you're you know interested in working in this space or you think you're interested in working in this space, like also reach out to me because I think people uh reach out to me if you're one of the good guys, uh, because uh we need you, we need the practitioners, uh and and uh yeah, there's a lot of good work that that can be done still.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Great insights. I I so appreciate you, and I'm so glad that this worked out that you're able to come on. Uh excited about you and everything that you you've got going on right now, and congrats again on the baby and and uh yeah, and thanks so much, Eden. So appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Yeah, the best time. I knew this would be good.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

Okay, thanks everyone.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

We'll talk next time. Thank you.