Tracy Dennis-Tiwary

If we pit the power of AI against the human brain, AI will win every time on accuracy, efficiency, and bandwidth. But Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary says the true gold standard, and the one that made us the remarkable species that created AI (and now must control it), “is something computer programs will never have: Emotional Intelligence (EI)”—and we have to protect this human superpower at all costs.

EI is the ability to interpret and manage emotions in yourself and others, and apply that knowledge to achieve your goals, she explains. It channels the genius of our prefrontal cortex—self-regulation, planning, value-based decisions, and other executive functions—to help us cope with stress, cultivate relationships, and solve problems. And it’s this very human intelligence that will guide us towards the most powerful and humane decisions about AI in today’s fast-moving technological landscape.

Tracy draws on her groundbreaking research on anxiety, as well as her unique experiences as an independent AI safety expert at OpenAI and a digital health technology entrepreneur to make this talk a must-listen for leaders, strategists, and anyone involved in AI. She reveals 3 areas where EI can and should inform our AI strategy—authenticity, intuition, and collaboration— and shows how we can design the role of AI in our lives against de-skilling and dependency and leverage AI to “help us be more fully, gloriously human.”

We tend to think of anxiety as an obstacle at work, assuming that it impedes our focus and productivity. But psychologist and author Tracy Dennis-Tiwary says we’re looking at this all wrong: anxiety is a superpower that we can use to become smarter and more tenacious in the face of challenge.

In this talk on anxiety in the context of workplace mental health and burnout, Tracy discusses how our beliefs and discourse about anxiety unintentionally set us up for failure, blocking us from managing anxiety effectively, and preventing us from learning how to leverage anxiety to our advantage. She distills learnings from cutting-edge scientific studies and shares stories from her personal experience as a digital health technology entrepreneur to show how we can create a paradigm shift in our approach to anxiety. She provides practical, actionable advice for “flipping the script” on anxiety, called the FLIP method.

This talk is a must-listen for workers at all levels. You will come away better able to distinguish healthy from unhealthy anxiety, manage and let go of anxiety when it’s getting in the way, and leverage anxiety as an advantage that increases persistence, grit, and creativity.

Educators are at the frontline of kids’ struggles with anxiety—whether it’s social anxiety, performance anxiety, or just plain feeling overwhelmed. The crisis is only growing—by the time kids turn 18, over 30% of them will have experienced debilitating anxiety. That’s more than 10 million in the United States alone. Isn’t this statistic a clear mandate that we must protect and buffer our youth against anxiety? But this would be a mistake. Research shows that avoiding and “fixing” anxiety-provoking situations may comfort anxious children in the moment, but prevents them from learning to cope in the long run.

In this talk on anxiety in the context of education, anxiety researcher and bestselling author Dr. Tracy Dennis-Tiwary discusses new perspectives on child anxiety. She provides a blueprint for how, by challenging our long-held assumptions, we can help kids and teens manage anxiety better, learn from it, and leverage it to their advantage.