Prophets of Technology: The OG influencers

TED Radio Hour

NPR

Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.4 • 21.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As AI infiltrates every aspect of our lives, who are some of the people behind this huge inflection point? In this special three-part series, you'll hear from the people predicting and shaping our tech future. Host Manoush Zomorodi reports on the latest and revisits her favorite conversations with the minds crafting the digital world we live in today: what they've gotten right — and wrong — and where they think we're headed next. Part 1 features futurist Ray Kurzweil and counterculture icon Stewart Brand.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the TED Radio Hour.
0:04.1	Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks.
0:06.8	Our job now is to dream big.
0:08.2	Delivered at TED conferences.
0:09.9	To bring about the future we want to see.
0:12.0	Around the world.
0:12.9	To understand who we are.
0:14.8	From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.
0:20.0	You just don't know what you're going to find.
0:21.9	Challenge you.
0:22.7	We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy?
0:25.1	And even change you.
0:26.3	I literally feel like I'm a different person.
0:28.4	Yes.
0:29.4	Do you feel that way?
0:31.1	Ideas worth spreading.
0:33.5	From Ted and NPR.
0:37.3	I'm Minouhe Zamoroti.
0:40.1	And behind every new device or innovation that seems to pop up out of nowhere.
0:46.9	At the time, people really thought we were crazy.
0:49.8	Our decades of research, countless hours of computation and vigorous debates.
0:57.0	But if we got the technology right,
	...

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