Dr. Vivienne Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and author. She is the Founder and Executive Chair of Socos Labs, a philanthropic “mad science” incubator, and the Chief Scientist at Possibility Sciences, where she is pioneering systems for hybrid human-machine collective intelligence. Her career is defined by intellectual trespassing—ignoring the... Read more
Dr. Vivienne Ming is a theoretical neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and author. She is the Founder and Executive Chair of Socos Labs, a philanthropic “mad science” incubator, and the Chief Scientist at Possibility Sciences, where she is pioneering systems for hybrid human-machine collective intelligence.
Her career is defined by intellectual trespassing—ignoring the borders between neuroscience, economics, and AI to solve the problems that don’t fit into neat categories. After surviving homelessness in her early 20s, she returned to academia to complete her undergraduate degree in just 15 months. She went on to earn her PhD from Carnegie Mellon, publishing research in Nature and NeuroIPS, then holding joint appointments at Stanford and UC Berkeley.
Vivienne was an early pioneer in using AI for human potential. As Chief Scientist of Gild, she built machine learning models trained on 122 million professionals to predict human capability. Today, through The Human Trust and Socos Labs, she has developed AI to treat diabetes and bipolar disorder, reunite orphan refugees, and help autistic children learn facial expressions.
She is the author of the upcoming book Robot-Proof: When Machines Have All The Answers, Build Better People (March 2026). A transgender woman and fierce advocate for inclusion, she speaks frequently on the “Tax on Being Different” and the economic cost of discrimination.
Based on her upcoming book (March 2026) We are moving past the fear of AI replacing us and into the reality of AI defining us. In this talk, Vivienne dismantles the traditional markers of success (degrees, pedigree) and explores the “constructs” that actually drive value in a high-tech future: resilience, creativity,...
Diversity isn’t just a moral imperative; it is a mathematical optimization problem. Vivienne shares her groundbreaking research on the “Tax”—the extra energy women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals must expend to achieve the same results as their peers. She explains how this tax stifles innovation and offers a roadmap...
How do you solve an “ill-posed” problem? Vivienne takes audiences inside the Socos Labs process. Using examples from her wildest inventions (AI for facial expression, predictive modeling for manic episodes), she teaches organizations how to embrace chaos, leverage the “Information-Exploration Paradox,” and use science fiction thinking to invent the future...
Why do good people do bad things? Why do we promote leaders who destroy culture? Combining neuroscience and behavioral economics, Vivienne dives into the cognitive load of leadership. She explains how stress and pressure physically alter our brain’s ability to be empathetic and ethical, and provides a scientific framework for...