Wellbeing Forum 2023 Report

HUMAN WELLBEING IN THE AGE OF AI A WELLBEING FORUM PUBLICATION BY DIPLOMATIC COURIER | WORLD IN 2050

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HUMAN WELLBEING IN THE AGE OF AI A WELLBEING FORUM PUBLICATION BY DIPLOMATIC COURIER WORLD IN 2050

PUBLISHER & CEO ANA C. ROLD

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

SHANE SZARKOWSKI

REPORT AUTHOR

WINONA ROYLANCE

EDITORS

JEREMY FUGLEBERG MELISSA METOS

ART DIRECTOR

MARC GARFIELD

MULTIMEDIA MANAGER WHITNEY DEVRIES

PHOTOGRAPHY LUCY DEARMAN

WELCOME

Ana C. Rold, CEO & Founder, Diplomatic Courier & World in 2050. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

“ULTIMATELY, THE WELLBEING FORUM IS NOT JUST A ONEDAY CONFERENCE—IT IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO BEGIN MAKING SMALL CHANGES THAT CAN CREATE A POSITIVE RIPPLE EFFECT INTO THE FUTURE.” -ANA ROLD 6 | FEBRUARY 2024

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o commemorate World Mental Health Day, Diplomatic Courier and World in 2050, in partnership with the Radiant Foundation and Gallup, recently presented the Wellbeing Forum in London under the theme of “Human Wellbeing in the Age of AI: Enabling Human Flourishing through Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Social, and Intellectual Health.” With speakers and global partners f rom groups such as citiesRISE, Faith in Media Initiative, Skylight, Readocracy and Salzburg Global Seminar, this year’s Wellbeing Forum covered a range of topics such as wellbeing at the individual, organizational, and societal levels, how we can flourish in the age of AI, as well as how faith and spirituality can positively affect wellbeing. Ultimately, the Wellbeing Forum is not just a oneday conference—it is an opportunity to begin making small changes that can create a positive ripple effect into the future and foster better wellbeing for all.

The conversation surrounding AI is actually a proxy for the worldwide anxieties humanity is facing today.

While discussions about AI may seem like a conversation about technology, a closer look reveals that many of the discussions surrounding AI are actually about how humans and AI can coexist. Worldwide, anxieties include the renewed threat of civil war or even nuclear war, an increasing number of climate change-related weather disasters, public health crises, automation leading to job disruptions, and a regression in student numeracy and literacy skills. AI has forced us to make urgent choices about which world we want all while confronting these global crises. However, while AI is extremely powerful, it’s not perfect yet. It is up to us to shape AI into something that is in service for humanity and that can help us confront the challenges we face today.

It is imperative to bring wellbeing to the forefront of big policy agendas.

Because wellbeing is often considered a softer agenda compared to today’s most talked about global issues, it tends to fall very low on policy agendas. However, the loneliness epidemic and decline in overall mental health around the world have created major challenges at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. While individuals are beginning to learn to practice self-care and employers and society at large are beginning to strategize programs around wellbeing, it is important that people and institutions at all levels continue to work towards enabling better health outcomes today so we are better prepared to face the challenges of tomorrow.

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CAN AI HELP USHER IN A FUTURE OF HOLISTIC HUMAN FLOURISHING?

Shane Szarkowski, Editor-in-Chief, Diplomatic Courier. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

“WE ALREADY HAVE POWERFUL DIGITAL TOOLS AVAILABLE TO HELP BOLSTER OUR WELLBEING, AND AI HAS THE POTENTIAL TO SUPERCHARGE THESE TOOLS. THE CHALLENGE IS MAKING SURE THAT THESE ARTICULATIONS OF AI ARE HUMAN-CENTRIC.”

-SHANE SZARKOWSKI 8 | FEBRUARY 2024

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n October 9, 2023—on the eve of World Mental Health Day—Diplomatic Courier held its annual Wellbeing Forum (WBF). We convened 120 delegates f rom 4 continents—wellbeing experts and advocates across a variety of sectors—at Gallup’s headquarters in the iconic The Shard, London.

The theme was the impact that AI can have on human flourishing, but in practice the theme was far more holistic because—as Diplomatic Courier CEO Ana C. Rold noted in her welcome remarks—conversations about AI are largely proxies for worldwide anxieties facing humanity today.

Speakers and panels discussed challenges to holistic and inclusive notions of wellbeing today—including intellectual, mental, spiritual, and societal health—which are too often overlooked, and the positive and negative impacts that AI can have on these more inclusive notions of wellbeing. The audience was encouraged to be active participants—which is why we call audience members “delegates”—to think about how we can bring about the best possible uses of AI to empower holistic human flourishing in 2024 and beyond.

This model of convening is in line with the mission of Diplomatic Courier’s think tank World in 2050, which uses collective intelligence to help diverse groups to co-create solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.

Much has been made about the harms that AI can bring about, how it can affect our information diet and how bias can lead to societal and individual harms. Yet we also already have powerful digital tools available to help bolster our wellbeing, and AI has the potential to supercharge these tools. The challenge is making sure that these articulations of AI are human-centric. There are substantial regulatory and market challenges to ensuring AI is more humancentric, and overcoming those challenges is a daunting task.

Yet the discussions kindled by this convening—and which continued among delegates long after the WBF ended— give reason for hope. Diplomatic Courier’s report on the convening features some of the key takeaways f rom the gathering. We hope the discussions and presentations f rom our forum, distilled by our team in this report, help you to also imagine ways to usher in a future of human-centric AI that can be a powerful force for human flourishing this year and in the decades to come.

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ENSURING AI DELIVERS A FUTURE WHERE HUMANITY FLOURISHES

Nikos Acuña, Co-Founder, Lyrical AI &, DialIn. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

“IT’S ULTIMATELY ABOUT THIS UNIVERSAL TRANSCENDENT TYPE OF INTELLIGENCE WHERE WE CAN EXPRESS OURSELVES, BUT ALSO FUNDAMENTALLY UNDERSTAND WHO WE ARE IN RELATION TO THE BROADER WHOLE, WHILE ULTIMATELY HARMONIZING WITH HUMANITY, TECHNOLOGY, AND NATURE.”

-NIKOS ACUÑA 10 | FEBRUARY 2024

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hile it is often said that the opposite of war is peace, Nikos Acuña, Co-Founder of Lyrical AI and DialIn, posits that the opposite of war is actually prosperity and flourishing. In fact, with machine learning and AI technologies advancing at unprecedented rates, worldwide human flourishing may be closer than we realize, and the challenges we face in today’s society will become a thing of the past as our collaboration and co-habitation with artif icial intelligence brings us to a new level of wellbeing. Before we can arrive at this utopian future however, challenges that we’ve already been facing in the tech space—most importantly that of data ownership—need to be addressed to guide the advancement of AI in a way that is mindful of humanity as a whole—moreover, able to bring humanity, technology, and nature into a state of harmony.

Key Takeaways Artif icial intelligence is the catalyst for human flourishing.

Human potential is ready to be unlocked with artif icial intelligence. In collaboration with AI, by observing the biodiversity and fluidity of nature, creating and imagining new worlds with generative AI, and designing new things that are much better for the earth, challenges with food, water, shelter, personal economic security, health, wellbeing, relationships, spirituality, self-actualization, and creativity can be solved for everyone, and humanity will have the opportunity to flourish.

Paradoxically, in order to best program and cultivate AI in a way that will lead to human flourishing, it is critical to listen to the ancient wisdom of what we’ve known to be there all along—especially the relationship we have as individuals to broader collective society—and our overall understanding of ourselves with respect to the greater whole. By drawing f rom these insights, we can ensure human flourishing and abundance and expand our def inition of progress beyond economic growth, environmental sustainability, and societal wellbeing to include AI responsibility, collective intelligence, and broader goals for human flourishing.

Big tech has not protected digital agency.

Much like how f ire has the ability to revitalize societies or burn down villages, technology is a tool that can be used to transform society—or destroy it. In the tech space, big tech platforms have undoubtedly transformed the world, but at a WELLBEING FORUM | 11

great cost. While these platforms have helped connect users, cultures, and communities, they have also led to a system of digital bondage where personal data is owned by corporations that lack transparency and limit user control, and with AI technologies dependent on data to grow and evolve, lack of digital agency means the evolution of AI is in the hands of large corporations. Without digital agency, individuals will also lack any control over AI, and the individual user experience that would lead to flourishing would be diff icult to achieve.

The future of AI is in the ability to dial in AI to the nuances of the human experience.

While the internet is built on keywords, yeses and noes and a largely dualistic and binary system, AI has the potential to lead to a more deep and nuanced user experience. With DialIn, Acuña believes that creating software that acts more like a dial than a simple switch could lead to personalized AI that works on the individual’s behalf in all areas of life, ultimately providing the user with full autonomy. From dialing in to your food experience at a new restaurant to dialing in whenever you are working out or meditating, you not only provide data for your personal AI assistant, but also contribute to 1-to-1 data exchanges with others you come into contact with and begin to create a data union on a societal level.

Indeed, if users have their own data to work with and they can train their own AI models, a lot of risks with AI would be mitigated; user and AI could work together to unlock mysteries and create human flourishing and abundance.

Furthermore, if individuals and AI all work together starting at the core foundation of work, health, and relationships, it could lead to the ability to draw deeper connections with people, navigate different worlds and spaces with greater fluidity, create unique and personalized media experiences that you own, and foster better inner fluency so as to codify complex and nuanced emotions and attributes for every user. Best of all, AI has the potential to align every user’s passion and purpose with making a living, truly leading to flourishing for all.

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HELPING THE FUTURE ARRIVE WELL FOR ALL

Participants at the Wellbeing Forum in London. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

PANELISTS MARIO VASILESCU CEO & CO-FOUNDER READOCRACY JOHN DYE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SKYLIGHT JACQUI DYER PRESIDENT MENTAL HEALTH FOUNDATION UK JOYSY JOHN ED-TECH ADVISOR & ENTREPRENEUR PATRICE JUAH (MODERATOR) LECTURER, IE UNIVERSITY WELLBEING FORUM | 13

E

Panelists at the Wellbeing Forum in London. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

xponential technologies are transforming industries across the world. From education to the internet to mental health platforms and every industry in between, these technologies—especially artificial intelligence—have the potential to disrupt society as we know it. In order to lay the groundwork for a future that is equitable and provides opportunity for flourishing for everyone amongst the chaos and ambiguity of exponential technology’s rapid rise, it is important to focus on inclusion and equity both in the creation of these technologies as well as the accessibility.

Most importantly, it is critical to remain mindful and keep these technologies human-centric in order to best mitigate challenges and help the future arrive well for all.

Key Takeaways Focusing on inclusion and equity, as well as putting patients and care providers at the center of mental health services legislation, is key to making mental health care services accessible for all.

Not everyone has access to the creation or use of exponential technologies. While artificial intelligence and other exponential technologies have the potential to bring about greater wellbeing and foster human flourishing, it is not accessible to everyone. Jacqui Dyer, president of the Mental Health Foundation UK, discusses how paying attention 14 | FEBRUARY 2024

Panelists at the Wellbeing Forum in London. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

to differential experiences by looking through the lens of underrepresented communities and making sure they have a seat at the table is crucial to ensuring wellbeing and flourishing for everyone. Especially with the creation of AI, making sure that all communities are present will make the data AI uses more inclusive and eliminate potential disparities.

It is important to bring the voice of patients and care providers into the center of influencing mental health service transformation. Through the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework, governing bodies in the UK are now able to pay particular attention to improving the racialized experience by building legislation into the fabric of the current system and empowering the voice of underrepresented communities. In this way, data can be collected to see where any discrimination and oppression may be occurring that are leading to high levels of mental health crises, and AI can then be used to provide real-time feedback on whether patients and care providers are experiencing opportunities to flourish or dealing with experiences of oppression, racism, or discrimination.

Technology needs to be human-centered and personalized.

It’s important to add an “e” and remember to focus on human(e) wellbeing in the age of technology. When talking about exponential technology, John Dye, executive director WELLBEING FORUM | 15

Participant at the Wellbeing Forum in London. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

of Skylight, says the key is to keep things human-centric and make sure that we retain control of technology so as to not allow technology control us. If we retain control of technology and use it for good in the world, we will see leaps and bounds moving forward in human wellbeing and flourishing.

AI can help personalize people’s mental health journey. With applications being created to help people at the individual level focus on their mental health, AI can be used to better personalize each user’s experience. Not only that, but AI programs can also be used by developers to quickly and efficiently analyze user information, such as which exercises they use the most, how long they are on them, and when they are on them.

Social media isn’t all bad, but you need to be a conscientious consumer of it. While social media can be incredibly harmful, it is important to not demonize platforms and remember that social media is essential in today’s world, but that it is also crucial not to consume too much. It is equally important to be conscientious not only of what we consume, but what we create and share online. To accomplish this, we can ask ourselves the question: how does what we consume and what we create online enhance our life offline?

AI and exponential technologies are here to transform ed-tech.

The biggest difference comes from making sure the technology sector is inclusive and diverse. The transformative power of education and technology cannot be denied, but unfortunately, there are many underrepresented communities who are not even part of the conversation. Joysy John, entrepreneur and ed-tech advisor, describes how it is important 16 | FEBRUARY 2024

that education institutions, policy makers, and civil society focus on building the right skills to prepare young people from all communities to thrive in the future, as well as to help people already in the workforce who need upskilling and reskilling by collaborating across different disciplines and sectors.

AI will bring uncomfortable changes in ed-tech, but it will also bring amazing opportunities. With exponential technologies accelerating rapidly, it is important that we’re using the technology in a way that is helping to build capabilities and make the most of personalized learning opportunities. With platforms such as Khanmigo beginning to implement AI technologies to give more personalized feedback for learners, the positive influence AI platforms have on students is increasing as access to these platforms grow. Similarly, AI has the potential to support teachers and reduce their workload by helping with assessing assignments and giving personalized feedback to students.

It is important to focus on information wellness and remain mindful of what we expect from AI. It’s important to ask the right questions regarding AI. According to Mario Vasilescu, CEO and Co-Founder of Readocracy, while it’s easy to get wrapped up in the possibilities that exponential technologies present, it is important to stop and ask questions around “what,” “who,” and “why?” What is the purpose of this rapid advancement? Is it for our happiness?

Are we truly happier if we are more efficient? Who is going to be driving these technologies? Is it Big Tech? Will the same mistakes made with social media be made again? What will it mean when we become as dependent on AI as we are with platforms such as Google Maps? If we keep these questions in mind, we can focus on pausing and making sure these exponential technologies arrive on terms that are good for us.

The infobesity epidemic is affecting everyone’s mental health.

The average American adult spends seven hours a day on devices, and 13 hours a day consuming media—the equivalent amount of time spent studying for 35 college degrees. Therefore, it is critical to begin shifting focus to information wellness in order to help people understand how their consumption of information is affecting them—as well as promoting educational infrastructure, campaigns, and tools that can be used to cultivate and build information wellness both at an individual and societal level. In this way, we can work towards a future where people are healthier at all levels, rather than distracted and divided, so we can begin to tackle and make progress on the issues that matter.

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GALLUP EXAMINES GLOBAL CONNECTION BETWEEN SPIRITUALITY AND WELLBEING

Ilana Ron Levey, Managing Director, Public Sector, Gallup. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

“BY CONDUCTING ANALYSES AT BOTH THE MICRO AND MACRO LEVELS, THE REPORT FOUND OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE OF A STRONG POSITIVE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELIGIOSITY AND BETTER WELLBEING ALONG SEVERAL INDICES, ESPECIALLY SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY WELLBEING.”

-ILANA RON LEVEY 18 | FEBRUARY 2024

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lthough wellbeing is often def ined in terms of physical, mental and emotional wellness, there is one key cornerstone of wellbeing that is often overlooked: spiritual wellbeing. Recently, Gallup and the Radiant Foundation conducted a largescale secondary analysis spanning Gallup’s world polls over the past 30 years in an effort to def initively look at how spirituality and religiosity relate to wellbeing. By conducting analyses at both the micro and macro levels—looking at factors such as a country’s overall religiosity as well as asking questions at the individual-level such as whether or not religion is an important part of your daily life—the report found overwhelming evidence of a strong positive relationship between religiosity and better wellbeing along several indices, especially social and community wellbeing.

Despite these f indings, however, several barriers remain that make it diff icult to bring the discussion surrounding spirituality and wellbeing into a wider public conversation, such as sensitivity to the term “religiosity” when compared to “spirituality,” a lack of inclusion of religious identif ication in companies’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategies and a general decline in religiosity in higher-income countries in the west. Therefore, Ilana Ron Levey, managing director of the public sector at Gallup, explains that it is crucial that reports like the one conducted by Gallup and the Radiance Foundation be used to inform the public conversation in order to inspire dialogue and action to better support spiritual wellbeing at the individual, institutional and societal levels.

Key Takeaways People with stronger commitment to spirituality or religion have better wellbeing.

Regardless of where you live, Gallup’s report reveals that religious people tend to have better outcomes and statistically meaningful benef its along several different dimensions of wellbeing: •

Meaning in life. Those who indicated they found religion to be an important aspect of their daily lives also reported experiencing a positive purpose in life and better coping.

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Improved social wellbeing. People who identify as religious have social connections in the form of faith supports that encourage them to reach out when in need.

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Improved community wellbeing. Religious people also indicate feeling a stronger connection to their community, along with higher levels of civic engagement and volunteering.

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Structural stability. Those involved with organized religion benef it f rom an organized structure for weekly routines and rituals to deal with diff icult situations such as illness and death.

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There is a link between greater spirituality and lower rates of poor mental health. According to other studies, greater spirituality often leads to lower rates of depression, suicide, addiction and isolation.

In many parts of the world, people are becoming less religious—and experiencing lower levels of wellbeing as a consequence.

Gallup has found that the relationship between spirituality and wellbeing varies not only by country or region, but also by average income level and overall religiosity in a country. In fact, Gallup research has found that while lower-income countries in Asia and Africa show a majority of their population indicating that religion is an important part of their daily lives, higher-income countries in North America and Europe are seeing a significant decline in people who consider religion important to them.

Interestingly, the report also found that while religious importance led to more positive emotions in those who practiced religion in low-income countries, even those who indicated they were non-religious appeared to have a positive effect in their wellbeing just by being surrounded by a higher proportion of religious people. Conversely, in higher-income but less religious countries, Gallup found more negative emotions to be associated with people who indicated religion as important to them. Levey hypothesizes that in higherincome countries where wellbeing is driven by a variety of factors, people may turn to religion in times of distress.

However, while there is a lack of information regarding why this relationship may exist, there is strong data that supports the fact that the religiosity of your country and the spirituality of people who surround you does make a big difference.

We need to examine opportunities and barriers across a number of levels when it comes to spiritual wellbeing.

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Individual level: In order to discuss opportunities and barriers for spiritual wellbeing at the individual level, it’s

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important to explore questions such as how comfortable people are talking about their own spiritual journey at work and in public, as well as what acceptance would look like.

•

Institutional level: In North America and Europe in particular, it can be posited that a variety of institutions likely play a role in the decline of religious identification, especially in terms of media, educational institutions, the workplace and even religious institutions themselves. In order to incorporate spiritual wellbeing into the workplace and find barriers, it’s important to explore why business leaders may be hesitant to incorporate spiritual wellbeing into their DEI programs, as well as explore opportunities companies have to begin incorporating these insights.

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Societal level: There are social norms in every country that both promote the incorporation of spirituality and hinder it. It is essential, therefore, to demonstrate how religiosity and spirituality can improve the health and wellbeing of individuals in society—and by proxy, society itself.

WELLBEING FORUM | 21

HR BLIND SPOTS: WHAT EMPLOYEES THINK ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH AT WORK

Dr. Scott C. Ratzan, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Health Communications and Jeremie Brecheisen, Managing Partner, EMEA, Gallup. Photo by Lucy Dearman.

“IT’S ABOUT FINDING THE INTERSECTION THAT BUSINESS LEADERS CARE ABOUT AND HELPING THEM UNDERSTAND WHAT’S COMING THEIR WAY FROM A WELLBEING PERSPECTIVE AT THE INTERSECTIONS THEY CARE ABOUT.”

-JEREMIE BRECHEISEN 22 | FEBRUARY 2024

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n industries around the world, employee wellbeing is an increasingly important topic of discussion within leadership and HR off ices. While it is generally acknowledged that the health and success of a company largely depends on the health and success of its employees, the question of how exactly to foster employee wellbeing in the workplace remains. Gallup managing partner for the EMEA region Jeremie Brecheisen said that nurturing employee wellbeing—physical, occupational, spiritual, or emotional—requires that companies ask the right questions and promote continuous, open dialogue with its employees. Unfortunately, many companies report a large communication gap between HR and employees. This means that issues such as burnout, conflict with coworkers, and adapting to new technology continue to affect the overall wellbeing of employees and organizations. This raises the question: how can we uncover HR’s blind spots, and what can we do to guide Chief Health Off icers (CHOs) in fostering wellbeing for their employees and company as a whole?

Key Takeaways Social wellbeing is the least discussed pillar of wellbeing on the agenda—but it is also the cause of many organizations’ toughest challenges.

Gallup polling has found that mental health, purpose, physical wellbeing, financial wellbeing, and career wellbeing are at the top of HR departments’ wellbeing agendas. Social wellbeing, meanwhile, ranks in last place for HR department priorities.

Gallup has also found that the biggest challenges to the new ways of working—namely hybrid and remote work—were all social challenges, with companies listing less collaboration, less cross-functional work and impaired working relationships as the biggest challenges they face today.

Managers are key to employee wellbeing—but there is a communication gap between HR and its employees.

When Gallup asked the question “my organization cares about my overall wellbeing,” 21% of respondents strongly agreed. However, when CHOs were asked the question “my organization cares about the overall wellbeing of our employees,” 65% strongly agreed. This contrast shows that while many HR off ices may care about their employees, there is a gap between what employees need and the effectiveness of HR wellbeing strategies.

For example, a Gallup questionnaire found that while both WELLBEING FORUM | 23

employees and HR departments agreed that the most important contributor to employee wellbeing is the manager, HR tends to focus strategies on wellbeing programs rather than training managers. In fact, fewer than half of CHOs said that they were training their managers on how to have a conversation about wellbeing with their employees.

Similarly, Gallup data found that managers leading hybrid teams are more likely to burn out at work compared to managers in charge of fully-remote or fully-onsite teams.

However, when managers were asked how much formal or informal training they received on leading hybrid teams, 47% said some training; on the flip side, 92% of CHOs answered that they’d offered both formal and informal training. According to Brecheisen, the problem stemmed from the fact that 54% of CHOs said they had left training optional, making it so most managers—already burnt out—would opt out.

Asking the right questions is critical to creating effective wellbeing agendas. Gallup found that by using a strengthsbased approach when asking managers about how they review survey results with their teams, they could explore both where managers struggle to take action and where managers thrive in taking action on survey results with their teams. By asking these questions, Gallup discovered that managers struggle when they are overwhelmed by other work priorities and thrive when they’re held accountable, have talent to be a good manager and believed it mattered.

Therefore, in order to help managers help employees, it is critical to ask managers the right questions.

General wellbeing is needed to implement new technologies such as AI. According to Brecheisen, while only 16% of CHOs believe their organization is ready to use AI, half of employees indicate that they think they’re ready—and with AI becoming more and more commonplace, it’s critical that employees are prepared to begin using AI in the workplace.

However, it is important that CHOs not simply turn it over to IT leaders. Instead, they should guide managers around how to teach their teams to use the technology—and perhaps most important of all, help managers understand the mindset behind these technologies and what they can do for organizations. However, without higher levels of wellbeing, it can be diff icult for employees to adjust to new technologies, and managers to lead teams in using this technology. Without employee and manager wellbeing, AI will be diff icult to implement in the workplace.

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HUMAN WELLBEING IN THE AGE OF AI

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