Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a fragment of futuristic imagination – it’s redefining the fabric of our daily experiences and corporate strategies. The world’s tech giants are making assertive strides in AI.
The TED Talks listed below explore how AI alters industries and revolutionizes the dynamics of our rapidly evolving world.
Your right to mental privacy in the age of brain-sensing tech
Neurotechnology, or devices that let you track your brain activity, could help you deeply understand your health. But without privacy protections, your innermost thoughts, emotions, and desires could be at risk of exploitation, says neurotech and AI ethicist Nita Farahany. She details some of the field’s promising uses – like tracking and treating diseases from depression to epilepsy – and shares concerns about who collects our brain data and how they plan to use it, ultimately calling for the legal recognition of “cognitive liberty” as we connect our brains and minds to technology.
War, AI and the new global arms race
Lethal drones with facial recognition, armed robots, autonomous fighter jets: we’re at the dawn of a new age of AI-powered warfare, says technologist Alexandr Wang. He explores why data will be the secret weapon in this uncharted landscape and emphasizes the need to consider national security when developing new tech – or potentially face all-out AI warfare.
The inside story of ChatGPT’s astonishing potential
In a talk from the cutting edge of technology, OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman explores the underlying design principles of ChatGPT and demos some mind-blowing, unreleased plug-ins for the chatbot that sent shockwaves across the world. After the talk, head of TED Chris Anderson joins Brockman to dig into the timeline of ChatGPT’s development and get Brockman’s take on the risks, raised by many in the tech industry and beyond, of releasing such a powerful tool into the world.
Will superintelligent AI end the world?
Decision theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky has a simple message: superintelligent AI could probably kill us all. So, the question becomes: Is it possible to build influential artificial minds that are obedient, even benevolent? In a fiery talk, Yudkowsky explores why we must act immediately to ensure smarter-than-human AI systems don’t lead to our extinction.
The incredible creativity of deepfakes and the worrying future of AI
AI-generated media that looks and sounds exactly like the real world will soon permeate our lives. How should we prepare for it? AI developer Tom Graham discusses the extraordinary power of this rapidly advancing technology, demoing cutting-edge examples – including real-time face swaps and voice cloning – live from the TED stage. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, Graham digs into the creative potential of this hyperreal content (often referred to as “deepfakes”) as well as its risk for exploitation and the new legal rights we’ll need in order to maintain control over our photorealistic AI avatars.
Why AI is incredibly smart and shockingly stupid
Computer scientist Yejin Choi is here to demystify the current state of massive AI systems like ChatGPT, highlighting three key problems with cutting-edge large language models (including some funny instances of them failing at basic commonsense reasoning.) She welcomes us into a new era in which AI is becoming almost like a new intellectual species – and identifies the benefits of building smaller AI systems trained on human norms and values.