You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks audio. This talk features scientist and philosopher Grady Booch, recorded live at TED at IBM 2016.

When I was a kid, I was the quintessential nerd. I think some of you were too. And you, sir, who laughed the loudest, you probably still are.

I grew up in a small town in the dusty plains of North Texas, the son of a sheriff who was the

son of a pastor. Getting into trouble was not an option. And so I started reading calculus books

for fun. That, you did too. That led me to building a laser and a computer and model rockets,

and that led me to making rocket fuel in my bedroom. Now, in scientific terms, we call this a very bad idea. Around that same time,

Stanley Kubrick's 2001, a space odyssey, came to the theaters, and my life was forever changed.

I loved everything about that movie, especially the Hal 9,000. Now, Hal was a sentient

computer designed to guide the discovery spacecraft from the Earth to Jupiter. Howe was also a flawed

character, for in the end, he chose to value the mission over human life. Now, Hal was a fictional character,

but nonetheless, he speaks to our fears,

our fears of being subjugated

by some unfeeling artificial intelligence

who is indifferent to our humanity.

I believe that such fears are unfounded.

Indeed, we stand at a remarkable time in human history,

where, driven by refusal to accept the limits of our bodies and our minds,

we are building machines of exquisite, beautiful, complexity and grace

that will extend the human experience in ways beyond our imagining.

After a career that led me from the Air Force Academy to Space Command to now, I became a systems engineer.

And recently I was drawn into an engineering problem associated with NASA's mission to Mars.

Now, in space flights to the moon,

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