Abstract:

What if the most important question about AI isn't what it can do, but what it's doing to us?

Eric Verdeyen comes to this conversation from an uncommon vantage point. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, he also holds a master's in political science and spent years in business and as an entrepreneur before entering clinical practice. Today he practices dentistry in Rolla, hosts the Notes & Things podcast where he explores AI, robotics, economics, and the future of work through long-form conversations. 

In this talk, Eric argues that AI is quietly exploiting two hardwired human tendencies — conservation of energy and the obsession with efficiency — in ways that may produce a new kind of public health problem: cognitive atrophy. Drawing on parallels to nutrition science and fitness, he makes the case that we will soon need to schedule time to think the way we schedule time to exercise.

You'll leave with a clearer sense of:

• Why convenience may be the biggest threat to deep thinking
• What makes human creativity genuinely irreplaceable — and what doesn't
• How AI will change jobs, learning, and professional work
• What to watch: vibe coding, AI therapy, and humanoid robotics