TED2011 Report – Session 8: Invention and Consequence

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Edward Tenner, historian of technology and culture, shares the intrigue of unintended consequences: “I didn’t always love unintended consequences, but I have learned to appreciate them.”

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Eythor Bender brings out Amanda Boxtel, a wheelchair user wearing an astonishing new exoskeleton. She is walking.

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Eli Pariser reveals some frightening data about our online identities: “I call it the “filter bubble.” Personalized data that is all you see. You don’t even know what you don’t see.”

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Chinese artist Ai Weiwei says: “I’m living in a society where freedom of speech is not allowed … I’m trying to involve my art with society, to build possibility.”

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Ralph Langner is a security consultant with a big job: “The idea behind the Stuxnet worm is quite simple: We don’t want Iran to get the bomb.”

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Googler Sebastian Thrun talks about the new Google car. “Our work has focused on building cars that can drive themselves. Anywhere, on any street.”

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How can you build a car for the blind? Roboticist Dennis Hong shows us how: laser range finders and scanners, GPS, cameras feeding into a driving computer.

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Philip Zimbardo presents a problem: “The Demise of Guys.” Girls now outperform guys at all levels of school from elementary to grad school. Why? He leaves the solution up to us.