Talks

Imagine a more emotionally intelligent future.

Emotion + Tech = ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Insightful, funny, a little quirky, Pamela travels around the world preaching an emotionally intelligent future for technology at conferences, festivals, hackathons, and events big and small. She has spoken at TEDx, SXSW, TNW, WebSummit, and more than 100 other events. She’s given lectures at Stanford d.school, Arizona State’s Center for Science and the Imagination, Parsons School of Design, University of Washington, University of Michigan, and many more universities. She regularly speaks at organizations around the world, including Google, Citi, Barco, and 3DS, among others.

Here are a few recent talk topics or see upcoming events.

A Future with Feeling

Our smartphones don’t know if we are having a good day or a bad day. Our cars could care less about compassion. Our home assistants are barely aware if we are shouting in frustration or just joking around. Technology is developing more IQ, but it lacks EQ. At the same time, technology’s hidden operating system seems to move between emotional extremes, from moral outrage to ironic distance. We are feeling new feels that we can’t only express through artful combinations of gifs and emojis. The emotional struggle is real and yet designers and developers try to dial back technology to neutral. But the future can be different. In this talk, Pamela looks 30 years into the future to envision how we can have a future with feeling.

The Emotional Life of Your Autonomous Car (or Connected Home or Internet Things)

We name our cars. We talk to our cars. The relationship we have with our cars is emotional. And it's about to get more complicated. With the convergence of affective technology and artificial intelligence, emotional interactions with our vehicles will become the norm. Concept cars can already understand and adapt to our emotions. This talk takes on current examples of emotional AI, how a car with a higher EQ could help or harm, and a framework for inventing an emotionally intelligent future. This talk can be adapted to focus on connected home, fashion, events, or other industries, too.

Next-Generation Empathy in the Age of Automation

Is technology killing empathy? Studies suggest that empathy is on the wane and technology might be partly to blame. From self-care to selfies, fail videos to filter bubbles, existential loneliness to righteous outrage, we are confronting the possibility that human-centered practice hasn’t created human-centered technology. As if we needed more proof, technologists are now trying to solve the “empathy problem” with emotional AI, VR, and chatbots. One thing is clear, empathy is more than a step in the design process or a new feature to add on. In this talk, we’ll look at 3 ways to design technology for cultivating a cohesive society where fellow feeling flourishes.

Detox Your Product

Digital wellbeing is finally a reality. With Google, Microsoft, and Apple all releasing quick fixes to help people out of dopamine loops, it looks like we might look up from our screens in the near future. But is that all there is to digital wellbeing? Nudging us to go offline may be good for our mental health. It may even be positive for the long-term health of digital brands. But it doesn't do much to change how addictive apps are designed. Can digital wellbeing involve being digital? In this interactive keynote, we look at what digital wellbeing without the on/off switch could mean and reverse engineer some of the most toxic experiences together.