TED Blog » Kevin Kelly

Technology's epic story: Kevin Kelly on TED.com

Matthew Trost — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:23:26 +0000

In this wide-ranging, thought-provoking talk from TEDxAmsterdam, Kevin Kelly muses on what technology means in our lives — from its impact at the personal level to its place in the cosmos. (Recorded at TEDxAmsterdam, November 2009, in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Duration: 16:32)

Watch Kevin Kelly’s talk from TEDxAmsterdam on TED.com, where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 600+ TEDTalks.

TEDxNASA and TEDxAmsterdam stream live tomorrow!

Shanna Carpenter — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:57:42 +0000

Tomorrow, Friday November 20th, two of our most exciting TEDx events so far will be streamed live. TEDxNASA was organized by NASA’s Langley Research Center and the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA). It’s a full day of talks on science, technology, entertainment and the arts. Speakers include author Mitch Albom, experimental artist Chakaia Booker innovation coach Gregg Fraley, robotics inventor Dr. Dennis Hong and Oprah & Friends radio host John St. Augustine.

TEDxAmsterdam is another day-long experience, with a string of fascinating speakers. The program will be opened by the Mayor of Amsterdam and includes the Netherlands’ Minister for Foreign Affairs, TEDsters Kevin Kelly and Bjarke Ingels as well as our own TEDGlobal Director Bruno Giussani and many other notable academics, artists, entrepreneurs and techies.

TEDxNASA runs from 10 am to 7 pm EST. To watch the stream, click here >>

To see the TEDxNASA speakers, click here >>

TEDxAmsterdam begins at 9:15 am CET. To watch the stream, go to the TEDxAmsterdam homepage here >>

To see the full TEDxAmsterdam program, click here >>

If you’re in the Netherlands, you can watch TEDxAmsterdam with a group of other involved and interested viewers. To find a free simulcast location across the Netherlands, click here >>

How technology evolves: Kevin Kelly on TED.com

Jenny Zurawell — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:00:07 +0000

This week we continue to bring you timeless archived talks while the TED media team gets some R and R.

In his 2005 talk on how technology evolves, Kevin Kelly attempts to reconcile his lust for the newest technological gadget with his abstemious impulse to sell all of his technology, save a bicycle on which he traveled across the U.S. along country back roads. Despite the fact that he runs Cool Tools, a blog on the latest and greatest in technology, Kelly admits that he endeavors to keep technology at abeyance in his daily life. Kelly’s conflicting history has prompted him to investigate the significance of technology to humanity.

Kelly begins his investigation by viewing the trends of technology through the lens of biology, drawing upon Richard Dawkins’ evolutionary concept of the selfish gene, to ask what technology wants. Kelly finds that the long-term trends of biological evolution- increased ubiquity, diversity, specialization, complexity, and socialization- are the exact same long-term trends of technological evolution. Thus, Kelly suggests we may consider technology as the seventh kingdom of life, sprouting from the animal kingdom, although technology deviates from biology in that technology does not die out, but rather accelerates evolution, or how we search for ideas. Technology participates in an infinite game that is continuous; it is played to keep playing and rewards evolving evolution as a means to perpetuate the game.

Kevin Kelly is the co-founding executive editor of Wired magazine and the former editor of Whole Earth Review. Kelly is working on his next book about “what technology wants” and is inviting comments on his work-in-progress on The Technium. Kelly is a board member of The Long Now Foundation, an organization that promotes slower, better, more responsible thinking that will pay dividends on a 10,000 year time scale. Visit Kevin Kelly’s website for an aggregation of his diverse projects, and follow him on Twitter: kevin2kelly. For more of Kevin Kelly’s visionary ideas at TED, check out his 2007 talk on the next 5,000 days of the web.

Twitter URL: http://on.ted.com/2Q

Watch Kevin Kelly’s talk on TED.com where you can download this TEDTalk, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances from our archive of 475+ TEDTalks.

Get TED delivered:
Subscribe to the TEDTalks video podcast via RSS >>
Subscribe to the iTunes video podcast
Subscribe to the iTunes audio podcast
Get updates via Twitter >>
Join our Facebook fan page >>

Subscribe to the TED Blog >>

The first 5,000 days of the web, and the next 5,000: Kevin Kelly on TED.com

tedstaff — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 08:17:43 +0000

At the 2007 EG conference, Kevin Kelly shares a fun stat: The World Wide Web, as we know it, is only 5,000 days old. Now, he asks, how can we predict what’s coming in the next 5,000 days? (Recorded December 2007 in Los Angeles, California. Duration: 19:33.)

Watch Kevin Kelly’s 2007 talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.

Subscribe to the TED Blog >>

Edge question 2008: What have you changed your mind about? Why?

tedstaff — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:48:06 +0000

Many TEDTalks speakers have answered the 2008 Edge Foundation question: What have you changed your mind about? Why?

Among the more than 160 essays from leading thinkers — scientists, philosophers, artists — look for Wired’s Chris Anderson, Nick Bostrom, Stewart Brand, Richard Dawkins, Aubrey de Grey, Juan Enriquez, Helen Fisher, Neil Gershenfeld, Daniel Gilbert, Daniel Goleman, Kevin Kelly, Steven Pinker, Carolyn Porco, Martin Rees, Michael Shermer and Craig Venter. Block out some time to sample these — it’s an addictive read.

Kevin Kelly: Technology as a teenager

tedstaff — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 07:24:12 +0000

Developing the ideas he laid out in his 2005 talk at TED — where he asked, “What does technology want?” — Kevin Kelly posts a fascinating essay in the latest edition of Edge.org. He suggests that we can think of technology as another kingdom of life — call it the technium. And that, like all other life, it grows.

He says,

I tend to think of the technium like a child of humanity. Our job will be to train the technium, to imbue it with certain principles because, at a certain level and at a certain age, it will basically become much more autonomous than it is now. It will leave us like a teenager who goes on to live alone: although he or she will continue to interact with us and will always be part of us, we have to let it go.

To succeed in this, though, he warns:

We need to have a deep sense of our values, what we stand for. In a deep irony, the more technology advances, the less sure we are of who we are and what we stand for as a species and as individuals.

Watch Kevin Kelly’s TEDTalk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, and join a wide-ranging discussion.

Celebrating "Spectacle"

junecohen — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:09:51 +0000

Architect David Rockwell joined forces with Chee Perlman and Kevin Kelly (TEDizens, all) in San Francisco last night, to celebrate Spectacle, the gorgeous book he created with Bruce Mau, exploring the phenomenon of public performance. Photos by Robert Leslie.