A Researcher's Take on Authentic Creativity in the Age of AI with Jessica Carson

When we met, it was a moment in time. Not as cool as 1968 Haight-Ashbury, not quite 1920s Paris — but it was DC in the early 2010s, and it was its own thing. Hustle culture before hustle culture had a name. We were all riding bikes to yoga and listening to Alt-J and none of us knew who we were going to become yet. Some of us became people the world would actually come to know. Jessica Carson is one of those people.Jessica is a social scientist, creativity researcher, author, and the founder of the Center for Human Creativity. She started her career as a neuroscience at the NIH, spent five years as Head of Innovation at the American Psychological Association, and wrote Wired This Way — a book on the psychology of entrepreneurs, the light and the shadow sides of that creative wiring, published at 29 in April 2020. She is now a PhD candidate studying authentic creativity: what makes a creative work feel genuinely human, and what happens to that feeling when artificial intelligence enters the room. Find her at jessicacarson.co.In this episode:- DC in the early 2010s as a moment in time — NIH neuroscience labs, Big Law, the first Hinge beta test, and the yoga studios where none of us had figured out who we were yet.- How the gap in age between women can feel different depending on where you're each standing — and how powerful women interact with each other. - What it means to be a student of a powerful female teacher, to receive that transmission, and to be a little terrified and a little enamored by it at the same time.- Writing and publishing Wired This Way at 29, the cringe of looking back at your own earlier creative work, and why retrospective ick is just a tax you pay for having made anything at all.- The light and dark sides of the entrepreneurial brain — ADHD, addiction, sensation-seeking, and why the same wiring that drives the addiction also drives the willingness to tolerate ambiguity and risk.- Why entrepreneurship was glamorized to the point of fetish in the 2010s, and why the AI era has produced an entirely new cast of main characters who would make that same book much harder to write today.- The job that fell apart, the toxic exit, the year the universe seemed to turn itself off, and how that exact bewilderment became the thesis for the PhD she's living inside right now.- The core of Jessica's research: AI threatens our ontological security because we've always believed creativity was our last uniquely human trait — and why panic and polarization on this topic are getting in the way of actually thinking clearly about it.Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/UMQNQ_AdLoA Submit your portal wisdom: the40portal.com/contribute — Whichever side of 40 you're on, your voice belongs in this book we're building together.Follow The 40 Portal Book on Substack: substack.com/@the40portalWork with Cath 1:1 — coaching spots open for September 2026: the40portal.com/coachingSubscribe, rate, review — it genuinely helps more women find this show.Website: the40portal.com | catherinezack.comInstagram: @the40portal | @cathzackHosted by Catherine Zack | Guest: Jessica Carson | Edited by Ruwantha Gunasinghe © 2026 The 40 Portal. All rights reserved.