Like any animal, humans understand the world through our senses. But unlike other creatures, we can't detect magnetic fields with our bodies, or the flow of water from a fish swimming hundreds of feet in the distance. But Ed Yong wants us to really imagine what it would be like to perceive the world in these ways. In this episode, the Pulitzer winning science writer shares the unique ways that other living species get information about the world–from the melodic data-loaded songs of...

Mark Cuban has gone from selling garbage bags door-to-door to selling internet companies for billions, acquiring an NBA team, and becoming a beloved “Shark” on Shark Tank. Mark reveals to Adam how he turns problems into opportunities in entrepreneurship, basketball, and investing. They discuss his latest venture–disrupting the healthcare industry with an online pharmacy and a price-slashing philosophy that makes hundreds of drugs affordable–and why following your passion is not the best way...

Pete Souza has taken some iconic photographs. A former Chief Official White House Photographer for both U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan AND Barack Obama, Pete’s career has taken him from teaching basic photography in Kansas to taking pictures for National Geographic, Life Magazine, and other dream outlets. In this episode, he talks about carrying out a vision for a project, how he built his unique path in the field, and why he sticks to the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words....

"What if you could control digital devices using just the power of thought? That's the incredible promise behind the Stentrode -- an implantable brain-computer interface that collects and wirelessly transmits information directly from the brain, without the need for open surgery. Neurotech entrepreneur Tom Oxley describes the intricacies of this breakthrough technology, which is currently enrolling participants in human trials, as well as how it could help restore dignity to those with...

How often do you go back and forth over how much to tip at the end of a meal? Depending on the state, in the U.S. that choice could be the difference between a livable income or financial mayhem for the workers who served and prepared your meal. But why do consumers have such power–and why are labor wages so tied to tips? Saru Jayaraman is a lawyer, activist and President of One Fair Wage. She is organizing a national movement of restaurant workers, employers and consumers in one of the most...

Michael Scott, Leslie Knope, Detective Jake Peralta–television producer and writer Michael Schur has created some of TV’s most beloved sitcom characters on shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. Still, his shows and his philosophy are not just about laughs. Today on The TED Interview, Michael Schur talks about the craft of writing the TV comedy, why he is obsessed with philosophy and ethics, and what he’s learned from both the fictional and the real workplace about...

With such rampant inequality across the globe, it’s difficult to imagine that in the near future, society could be a place of abundance where everyone has education, healthcare, or housing. But for journalist Aaron Bastani, this improved state of affairs is not off limits; in fact, he believes that, with technology, a better world could be closer than we think. In this episode, Aaron speaks to how and why we should leverage the technological revolution to confront the global challenges of the...

Before labor unions fought for them, society didn’t have weekends as we know them. In the 13th century, the average male peasants in the UK only worked 135 days a year. In a post-pandemic and increasingly virtual world, what is the future of labor? Juliet Schor is an economist and sociologist whose research focuses on work and consumer society. In this episode, she shares her thoughts on modern working practices and how her current research on the four-day work week could help address...

Demis Hassabis is one of tech's most brilliant minds. A chess-playing child prodigy turned researcher and founder of headline-making AI company DeepMind, Demis is thinking through some of the most revolutionary—and in some cases controversial—uses of artificial intelligence. From ​​the development of computer program AlphaGo, which beat out world champions in the board game Go, to making leaps in the research of how proteins fold, Demis is at the helm of the next generation of groundbreaking...

Jennifer Egan is a journalist and writer whose novel “A Visit from the Goon Squad” won both the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Using a unique format—including a whole chapter told through Powerpoint—Egan nimbly explores the mystery and complexity of human life in the digital age. Her newest book, “The Candy House,” poses similar questions around technology, memory, and authenticity. In this episode, the author talks candidly about her creative...

Garry Kasparov is one of the greatest chess players of all time. He was one of the youngest world champions ever, and had a 20-year streak as the world’s top-rated player. But even though he is known as a champion, he is also particularly famous for losing—against Deep Blue. After the IBM computer beat Kasparov, the Azerbaijan native spent much of his career thinking about games, computers, artificial intelligence, and how to beat our fears regarding technology. Now he’s turned his attention...

The way Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical physicist, sees it, Harriet Tubman is the Great American Astronomer. Using the North Star, with no formal training, Harriet Tubman led hundreds of enslaved people to freedom. Chanda is a night sky expert, too. She’s studying the intersections of astrophysics, particle physics, and cosmology, and she’s a leading thinker in understanding dark matter—the invisible particles some postulate could account for most of the matter in the universe. In...

Future forecaster and game designer Jane McGonigal ran a social simulation game in 2008 that had players dealing with the effects of a respiratory pandemic set to happen in the next decade. She wasn’t literally predicting the 2020 pandemic—but she got eerily close. Her game, set in 2019, featured scenarios we're now familiar with (like masking and social distancing), and participant reactions gave her a sense of what the world could—and eventually, did—look like. How did she do it? And what...

It’s official, the TED Interview has a new host! In Chris’s last episode as head of the show, he interviews his successor, bestselling science and technology author Steven Johnson. Two self-described intellectual soulmates, Chris and Steven take a deep dive in discussing where ideas come from, how optimism benefits creative ideation, the complex and even controversial process of discovery, and the beauty of what they call the “adjacent possible.”

The way that our brain perceives the world is profoundly informed by our senses–so what would happen if we could heighten them—or even create a whole NEW sense? In one of his last episodes as host of the show, Chris Anderson kicks off our series on the future of intelligence by interviewing neuroscientist and author David Eagleman. They’ll decode the mysteries of the brain, consider consciousness and what it means to be human, and dig deep into David’s ground-breaking research on how wearable...

What will it take to build a future worth being excited about? Elon Musk believes we already have the tools that will help us create one, but we must take bold action to get there. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Musk details how the radical new innovations he’s working on—Tesla’s intelligent humanoid robot Optimus, SpaceX’s otherworldly Starship and Neuralink’s brain-machine interfaces—could help maximize the lifespan of humanity and create a world where goods and services...

In an ever expanding world, it can be easy to think of our lives as insignificant. But according to David Deutsch, we all possess one skill that gives each of us infinite reach: our ability to attain knowledge. In the final episode of this season dedicated to making a case for optimism, Chris revisits his interview with the father of quantum computing to explore how knowledge first developed, how it sets us apart and how we can use it to shape a more hopeful future.

From governments to airlines to your favorite eco-friendly clothing brand, tree-planting campaigns are everywhere. Reforesting the planet has become one of the quickest, easiest and most ubiquitous ways to reduce our carbon footprint...but is it actually helping to stop climate change? Ecologist Thomas Crowther speaks with Chris about how planting trees can actually hurt the environment -- unless it's done right. In which case, it can be a pivotal solution in our efforts to end the climate...