My 2026 TED Talk on AI companions and loneliness was just released. You can watch it here.
I gave my first TED Talk fifteen years ago—watch here and marvel at my baby-faced enthusiasm. Those were simpler times. I was invited to attend the TED conference in Edinburgh and given general guidelines for my talk. When I got to Scotland, I practiced in front of Chris Anderson (who ran TED from 2001 until handing it over to Sal Khan last year). He gave me useful comments and suggested I change a slide. I took his advice, and the next day, I went on stage.
Now things are intense. I submitted the full text of my talk months in advance for lawyers and fact-checkers to review. A design team helped me with the slides. I worked with coaches. And I had multiple practice talks over Zoom, including one in front of Chris.
When I arrived in Vancouver, I did a full dress rehearsal and bombed—stumbling over my lines, misreading a slide, messing up a joke. The talk itself went well enough, I think. I’m proud of it, grateful to have been invited (big thanks to Daniel Gilbert, who asked me to join the session that he ran), and very appreciative of all the help. I hope people like it!
And yet. If I were in the audience for my own talk, and there was a Q&A session, I would have some things to say. I didn’t have enough time in my 12-minute talk to anticipate and respond to counter-arguments, so it’s a good thing I have this Substack.
