TED Tech

What if your hour-long commute was reduced to just minutes? That's the promise of the hyperloop: a transit system designed around a pod that zooms through a vacuum-sealed space (roughly the size of a subway tunnel) at hyper-speed, powered by next-generation batteries and state-of-the-art magnetic levitation. In the visionary talk, Josh Giegel, the hyperloop's very first passenger, shares how this zipping innovation could launch us into a faster, cleaner future of transportation.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stretching over roughly nine million square kilometers and with sands reaching temperatures of up to 80° Celsius, the Sahara Desert receives about 22 million terawatt hours of energy from the Sun every year. That's well over 100 times more energy than humanity consumes annually. So, could covering the desert with solar panels solve our energy problems? Dan Kwartler digs into the possibility. [Directed by Christoph Sarow, AIM Creative Studios, narrated by Jack Cutmore-Scott, music by André Aires].Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Siri to Alexa to Google, virtual assistants already permeate our lives. What will the next generation of these digital helpers look and sound like? Customer experience professional Karen Lellouche Tordjman gives us a glimpse of where they're headed -- and breaks down the two key challenges engineers need to crack in order to usher in a new age of truly smart voice assistants.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Will innovation in artificial intelligence drastically improve our lives, or destroy humanity as we know it? From the unintended consequences we've suffered from platforms like Facebook and YouTube to the danger of creating technology we can't control, it's easy to see why people are afraid of a world powered by AI. But in this interview, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman makes a case for AI's potential to make the future better for all of us—and explains how his company is leading that charge with an unusual new business model.This is an episode of The TED Interview, another podcast in the TED Audio Collective. For More episodes, find and follow The TED Interview wherever you're listening to this.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if we had a map of ... everything? Jack Dangermond, a visionary behind the geographic information system (GIS) technology used to map and analyze all kinds of complex data, walks us through the interconnected technologies gathering information about every crack and corner of the Earth. Learn how this "living atlas" and "geospatial nervous system" can help us better understand our changing planet -- and let nature guide our actions towards a more sustainable future.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if diseases could be treated with a patient's own cells, precisely and on demand? Biotech entrepreneur Nabiha Saklayen explains how we could harness advances in biology, machine learning and lasers to create personalized stem cell banks -- and develop medicine uniquely designed for each of our bodies.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"We've been promised a future of chrome -- but what if the future is fleshy?" asks biological designer Christina Agapakis. In this awe-inspiring talk, Agapakis details her work in synthetic biology -- a multidisciplinary area of research that pokes holes in the line between what's natural and artificial -- and shares how breaking down the boundaries between science, society, nature and technology can lead us to imagine different possible futures.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is a weapon in the Information Age? From microscopic "smart dust" tracking devices to DNA-tracing tech and advanced facial recognition software, journalist Sharon Weinberger leads a hair-raising tour through the global, unregulated bazaar of privatized mass surveillance. To rein in this growing, multibillion-dollar marketplace that often caters to customers with nefarious intents, Weinberger believes the first step is for governments to classify surveillance tools as dangerous and powerful weapons.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're far from developing robots that feel emotions, but we already have feelings towards them, says robot ethicist Kate Darling, and an instinct like that can have consequences. Learn more about how we're biologically hardwired to project intent and life onto machines -- and how it might help us better understand ourselves.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this revelatory talk, technologist Kayvon Tehranian explores why NFTs -- digital assets that represent a certificate of ownership on the internet -- are a technological breakthrough. Learn how NFTs are putting power and economic control back into the hands of digital creators -- and pushing forward the internet's next evolution.Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.