Vivian Schiller
Vice President and Executive Director of Aspen Digital at the Aspen Institute, focused on responsible stewardship of technology and media. She is a longtime journalism, media, and technology executive whose past roles include Global Chair of News at Twitter, President and CEO of NPR, Chief Digital Officer of NBC News, and General Manager of NYTimes.com.
AI Distrust Makes Human Agency the Central Cultural Question
Opening Shared Futures: The AI Forum, Vivian Schiller of Aspen Digital and Vilas Dhar of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation argued that public distrust of AI is not an obstacle to the conversation but its starting point. Schiller framed AI as a contested tool that can either feel imposed on people or be used by artists and makers with agency; Dhar said the deeper issue is not the technology itself, but how people turn fear of replacement into meaning, art, and shared experience.
Trust-Building Was Framed as Funded, Measurable Community Work
The 2026 Trust in Practice Summit highlights present trust-building as practical civic work that needs funding, tools, measurement, and local leadership, not simply a sentiment to be restored. Hosted in Chicago by the Alliance for Social Trust in partnership with Allstate, the summit convened more than 250 leaders and announced $1 million, $500,000, and $100,000 awards to 11 nonprofit collaborations across 10 states. Speakers argued that institutions should support community leaders, measure trust at a local level, and focus on the ordinary problem-solving through which trust is built.
Trust-Building Is Cast as a Practice Learned Through Community Action
Vivian Schiller and Dan Porterfield opened the 2026 Trust in Practice Summit by framing social trust as work to be learned from practitioners, not simply a theme for discussion. Schiller described the Chicago gathering as a convening built around participation and exchange, while Porterfield tied the effort to the Aspen Institute’s postwar tradition of using dialogue to build understanding and spur action. Their central case was that Aspen and Allstate can help connect communities already rebuilding trust into a broader learning network.
Trust in Practice Awards Fund 11 Local Trust-Building Collaborations
The 2026 Trust in Practice Summit, convened in Chicago by the Alliance for Social Trust with the Aspen Institute and Allstate, presented trust-building as practical local work that requires funding, measurement, institutional listening and community relationships. Speakers including Daniel Porterfield, Tom Wilson and others argued that pluralism and institutional trust depend less on national messaging than on leaders embedded in communities, while the summit’s awards and Trust Map were offered as tools to support that work.
Pope Leo XIV Frames AI Governance as a Test of Human Dignity
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, argues that artificial intelligence should be judged first by its effects on human dignity, agency and power, not by its technical promise. In a panel moderated by Vivian Schiller, Vilas Dhar, Kim Daniels and Josh Good read the document as an effort to bring Catholic social teaching into AI debates over work, education, autonomous weapons, institutional accountability and the moral limits of markets and technology.
Pope Leo XIV’s AI Encyclical Ties Safety Rules to Human Dignity
A panel convened by Aspen Digital treated Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnificent Humanity, as an authoritative Catholic intervention in AI governance rather than a narrowly theological text. Kim Daniels, Vilas Dhar, and Josh Good argued that the document judges AI by its effects on human dignity, especially for workers, students, creative professionals, and vulnerable communities, while pointing to safety regulation, retraining, and education as practical tests. The unresolved problem, Daniels said, is whether the Church can move that teaching from Rome into parishes, civic institutions, classrooms, and technology work.