Skip to main content
Notifications
  • For Easy Public Speaking
    ×
  • How to Tell if the Audience is Engaging with Your Public Speaking
    ×
  • Latest Features
    ×
  • Public Speaking Tips That Work Like a Charm
    ×
  • Max Ringelheim | When Going Viral
    ×
  • Upgrade
  • Blog
  • Login
  • Sign up
  • Speakers
  • Organizers
  • Agencies
  • Events
  • How it works
  • SkillCamp
  1. Home
  2. Find a speaker
  3. Dave Edwards
Dave Edwards's cover banner
Gold
Dave Edwards's picture

Dave Edwards

Co-Founder
Sonder Studio
Country or state 
United States (Oregon)
Available to 
Global
City 
Bend
Fee 
Ask for pricing
Languages 
English
Volunteer
Yes
Timezone 
America/Los_Angeles

Personal Details

Bio

Experienced entrepreneur, executive, investor and advisor, with a proven track record of innovating and company building. Specialist in the future of work, especially the impact of AI and automation on the human employee experience.

My current speaking engagements include my wife & business partner, Helen, with whom I co-founded Sonder Studio. We bring a dynamic duo to the stage to help people understand AI, how it works for and against us, how it makes us feel and what we can do about it. We provide a positive outlook in an area that scares many by empowering people through knowledge that leverages expertise in technology, neuroscience, behavioral economics and philosophy.

I've been a performer all my life and a speaker for more than 20 years. I stitch together the future of technology and humanity with personal stories of working with some of the greats including Steve Jobs at Apple and Mary Meeker at Morgan Stanley. I've been an exec at the top of industry and an entrepreneur at the ground-level which gives me an ability to connect with a broad group of people.

To the stage, I bring a broad and comprehensive experience across finance, product marketing and strategy including as a venture capital investor and director, public company executive, startup founder & CEO and Wall Street analyst.

I'm a trend-spotter, analyst and storyteller. I have spent my career distilling and advancing big technology trends like the internet, cleantech and artificial intelligence. My brain is split in two with half dedicated to creatively designing consumer experiences while the other half has an uncanny ability to find the right metric to measure and build upon. This unique combination allows me to find opportunities ahead of the herd, create products that delight millions and raise billions for emerging companies.

My past experience includes co-founding Intelligentsia.ai (acquired by Quartz/Atlantic Media) as well as serving as head of software application marketing at Apple, head of consumer strategy at SunPower and a lead technology research analyst at Morgan Stanley.

My speaking experience includes wide range of conferences, including: the House of Beautiful Business, Greentech Summit, MacWorld, MarTech, Montreaux, Morgan Stanley Investment Conference, National Association of Broadcasters, National Headstart Association and South by Southwest. I've also been interviewed by a range of print and TV media, including: Bloomberg, CBC, CNBC, Fast Company, the Financial Times, Fox Business, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Current position (1)

Co-Founder

Sonder Studio

Degrees (1)
History
Yale University
1989 to 1993

Presentations

Presentations (7)
The business case for people and process as part of AI/ML

Only a small fraction of companies get value from their AI/ML investment even after years of prototyping, infrastructure investment and strategy. Why? Because it’s all about how people learn and make decisions with machines and data. It should be easier but strong data-driven cultures don’t emerge, they are designed. We discuss why AI must be designed around how people learn and make decisions for it to deliver on its promise, and what to do about it.

Organizations are decision factories

“Organizations are decision factories,” says Nobel Laureate, Danny Kahneman. But with organizations increasingly being staffed not only by people and teams but also by data and machine learning models, how do human employees work best with machine employees? We explore the nuances of human decision making when workflow includes intelligent machines.

Data makes decisions harder, so here’s what to do about it

Shouldn’t data make decisions easier? You’d think so but that’s not how it works. We explain why our causal reasoning systems and intuitions are less useful the more data we have and why experience and data can be in conflict. We compare how humans reason and how machines reason and show you what makes for the best of both worlds. We touch on the future of causal machine learning and where the limits of machine reasoning are today.

How do we know that machines are learning what we want them to learn?

How do we know that machines are learning what we want them to learn? This is a central problem in machine learning and is known as the problem of alignment. Aligning machines to human intent is no trivial thing. While most people don’t worry about a superintelligence running amok, most of us do worry about the impact of intelligent machines on our experience of the world—are we eroding our own decision making capabilities and choices as we outsource more of our thinking and knowledge to machines?

AI, Personalization and the Design of Human Futures

Personalization in assistance, commerce, health, education and many other realms of life promises a new era of personal efficiency and, if done well, digital intimacy. But over personalization can be creepy and make people distrust AI or the brand behind it. AI forces us to think differently about the data we volunteer and the inferences being made about us and makes us want to know our data “voodoo doll.” It makes us want to ask what inferences are made about us based on our data and the data of others. We can feel trapped by the Paradox of Personalization and wonder if companies are engaged in human-centered design or in human futures design. In this talk, we dive into the emerging issues of personalization and the impact on privacy, preferences and personal agency.

AI and your Inner Self

In this session, we disrupt the traditional view the audience has of privacy. We describe how a new type of intelligence is interacting with us, forcing us to think differently about privacy. We detail how, instead of the inputs — what information we volunteer — we have to think of the outputs — what inferences are made about us. We explain how AI is alien in its knowledge about us, and how passive and unavoidable data collection can be used to track and infer our inner states, giving away our doubts and hesitations. We explore where these are used to budget us to alternate ends. We thread many privacy-related themes together to end with audience insights into AI’s role in denying us the right to explore, change, make mistakes and grow.

AI and our Biased Society

In this session, we explain how data bias impacts AI. We explain how data reflects human bias and how this presents in the data, as well as how AI algorithms amplify bias. We explain fairness and how fairness metrics can conflict. We explain why it’s vital to have diversity in AI, and give multiple, concrete examples of where bias in AI has caused harm. Finally, we close with the promise of AI done well — reducing human bias and increasing inclusivity.

Workshops (1)
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Full day
(View workshop agenda)

This workshop starts with understanding how humans think; how humans gain a sense of knowledge and make decisions. We then explore the role of intuition and experience versus analysis and predictive modeling. We diagnose the barriers to better use of data and the human factors at play. We look to the latest in behavioral science to understand where people are indispensable and what's required to unlock human potential in the age of data. We dive deep on how technology—big data, analytics, AI/machine learning—changes where, how and when to look to data for better decision-making.

Past talks (3)
Learning in the Age of AI
Unknown Summit
Lisbon, Portugal
November 7, 2019
Artificial Intelligence Masterclass
House of Beautiful Business
Lisbon
November 5, 2019
AI and Intimacy
House of Beautiful Business
Lisbon
November 6, 2018
  • All (7)
  • Videos
  • Photos (7)
This speaker hasn't uploaded any videos yet.
This speaker hasn't uploaded any slides yet.
This speaker hasn't uploaded any one sheet yet.
This speaker hasn't uploaded any press information yet.

Books & Articles (14)

Decision Design (upcoming)
2021
Make Better Decisions: How to Improve Your Decision-Making in the Digital Age
Bitterbrush Press,
2022
The skills your kids should cultivate to be competitive in the age of automation
The new Watch 3 and iPhone X interfaces are examples of a classic Steve Jobs insight
Which countries do people most trust with their data? “None of the above.”
AI does not have enough experience to handle the next market crash
Ninety percent of people think AI will take away the jobs of other people
What Facebook can learn from Kierkegaard about making authentic choices
Google’s engineers say that “magic spells” are ruining AI research
If we end up sitting around in self-driving cars watching ads, Google is going to make billions
Zoom may be the true unicorn—a profitable tech startup
Everything Uber doesn’t want you to notice in its IPO
WeWork is already the wildest IPO of the year
Peloton’s IPO is well-timed to exploit our obsessions with fitness and showing off

Expertise (18)

Technology
Media & Marketing
Business
Artificial Intelligence Data-Driven Decisions Human centered design Decision Design Internet Decision-making Artificial Intelligence for Business Automation Future Data and Privacy bias AI Ethics AI Decision Science making better decisions

Clients

Starbucks
The New York Times
State of Oregon
Disney
CapGemini Invent
R/GA
Oregon State University
House of Beautiful Business
US Department of Energy
National Head Start Association
Galp
Callahan Innovation
Recommendations
Why choose me? 

Dynamic speaker on how to make better decisions in the age of big data & AI.

Social media
Similar to Dave
  • Gregory Thomas's picture
    Gregory
    Thomas
    MANAGING DIRECTOR
    375 Park Associates
  • Tom Vorves's picture
    Tom
    Vorves
  • Jeanne Zierhoffer's picture
    Jeanne
    Zierhoffer
    Award-Winning International Speaker
    JZ LifeStyle Team
  • Khushboo Jha's picture
    Khushboo
    Jha
    CEO
    BuyProperly Limited
  • Muhammad Awais's picture
    Muhammad
    Awais
    Co- Founder/ Director Sales
    Techno Control Corporation
  • Speakers
  • Agencies
  • Events
  • How it works
  • Blog
  • Upgrade
  • Podcast
  • About us
  • Organizers
  • Terms of use
  • Privacy policy
  • FAQ
  • API
  • White Label Terms
  • Contact
  • Corporate Speakers Bureau & CRM
  • Motivational speakers
  • Leadership speakers
  • Business speakers
  • Inspirational speakers
  • Keynote speakers
  • Corporate speakers
  • Celebrity speakers
  • Top 50 Business Speakers
  • Top 50 Leadership Speakers
  • Top 50 Motivational Speakers
  • Top 50 Technology Speakers

Get speaking tips & so much more!

Twice a month we send you speaking tips, training ideas and lots of useful updates.

© 2023 SpeakerHub
All rights reserved.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • SoundCloud
Developed by Integral Vision