TED Talks Daily

After working for years in film, fashion and graphic design, visual artist Kelly A. Boesch found a new collaborator to work with: AI. She walks through how she uses the technology to create dreamlike images and music that remain hauntingly human, exploring the two questions everyone keeps asking her — how do you make it, and is it really art?

Is conversation a lost art, or is it just evolving? Journalist Joshua Johnson and social entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie answer questions on everything from the male loneliness crisis to what it actually takes to connect with others — and reveal two deceptively simple tips for going deeper with the people around you. (This conversation is part of “TED Intersections,” a series featuring thought-provoking conversations between experts navigating the ideas shaping our world.)

3D printing promised to reinvent how we make things, but it's mostly stuck producing prototypes with a high level of waste. Designer and TED Fellow Schendy Kernizan found a different way — by printing objects directly into a tub of gel. He explains how this technique eliminates the constraints of gravity, pushing the limits of how we can manufacture objects across medicine, fashion, space travel and more.Following his story, pulled from a short film he made for TED, Kernizan speaks with Lily James Olds, director of the TED Fellows program, on where this fascination with making things first came from. They talk about what kind of objects Kernizan’s is most excited to build, how he overcomes setbacks, and what keeps him motivated.

What does a war look like when you sit still long enough to draw it? Reportage artist and TED Fellow George Butler sketches the people that the news passes by: a 99-year-old survivor of the Holodomor famine in Ukraine, a man gathering books blasted into a rose garden, an architect whose home was hit by a Russian missile. Urging us to slow down in the age of immediate news, Butler shows how a drawing reveals what a headline can't.

How does bullying take root? Social psychologist Amy Cuddy got an inside view of this question after she became the target of a coordinated campaign to discredit her. Drawing on her own experience and years of research, she gives a clear-eyed analysis of how bullying reshaped our culture and how each of us can practice social bravery — everyday acts of standing up for one another — to end it. (Note: This talk contains discussion of suicide.)

Wealth inequality gets talked about as an economic problem. Writer Xochitl Gonzalez makes the case that it's a civic one, too — a slow, quiet threat to democracy. Drawing on her research into the psychology of social class, she shows how growing up with (or without) money changes how we experience politics, community and society.

Rita Pierson, a teacher for 40 years, once heard a colleague say, "They don't pay me to like the kids." Her response: "Kids don't learn from people they don't like.'" A rousing call to educators to believe in their students and actually connect with them on a real, human, personal level.

When technologist Luis von Ahn was building the popular language-learning platform Duolingo, he faced a big problem: Could an app designed to teach you something ever compete with addictive platforms like Instagram and TikTok? He explains how Duolingo harnesses the psychological techniques of social media and mobile games to get you excited to learn — all while spreading access to education across the world.This episode originally aired in 2024.