logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2025
6m 30s

"The Unprompted," a poem that AI will ne...

TED
About this episode

What happens when a poet talks back to AI? In an electrifying performance, Salome Agbaroji performs her original spoken-word poem, "The Unprompted," weaving a powerful reflection on humanity, technology and what no machine can match.

Learn more about our flagship conference happening this April at attend.ted.com/podcast


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
The tiny organisms transforming farming | Karsten Temme
What if the solution to feeding humanity has been hiding in the soil for millions of years? Bioengineer Karsten Temme discovered a remarkable answer to this question: for eons, crops relied on soil microbes to convert atmospheric nitrogen into food — until modern farming severed ... Show More
11m 26s
Feb 26
Jermaine Dupri on the art of making a hit | On the Spot
Legendary music producer Jermaine Dupri pulls back the curtain on how hit songs really get made in TED’s rapid-fire Q&A format, “On the Spot.” Answering a stream of unexpected questions, he covers what makes a good hook, why he doesn’t chase “cool,” how he helped build Atlanta’s ... Show More
12m 37s
Feb 25
The story you're not hearing about AI data centers | Ayșe Coskun
The race to build smarter AI is crashing into a physical limitation: the power grid simply can't keep up with the energy demands of data centers. Computer scientist Ayșe Coskun shows how we could turn this problem on its head, transforming AI facilities into virtual batteries tha ... Show More
13m 55s
Recommended Episodes
Aug 2025
"The Unprompted," a poem that AI will never understand | Salome Agbaroji
What happens when a poet talks back to AI? In an electrifying performance, Salome Agbaroji performs her original spoken-word poem, "The Unprompted," weaving a powerful reflection on humanity, technology and what no machine can match.Learn more about our flagship conference happen ... Show More
6m 30s
Aug 2019
AI and Neuroscience: The virtuous circle
What can the human brain teach us about AI? And what can AI teach us about our own intelligence? These questions underpin a lot of AI research. In this first episode, Hannah meets the DeepMind Neuroscience team to explore these connections and discovers how our brains are like bi ... Show More
34m 2s
Aug 2025
Will AI make humans extinct? | Yoshua Bengio
Yoshua Bengio — the world's most-cited computer scientist and a "godfather" of artificial intelligence — is deadly concerned about the current trajectory of the technology. As AI models race toward full-blown agency, Bengio warns that they've already learned to deceive, cheat, se ... Show More
15m 42s
Aug 2025
Is AI Conscious? Claude 4 Raises the Question
Host Rachel Feltman talks with Deni Ellis Béchard, Scientific American’s senior tech reporter, about his recent exchange with Claude 4, an artificial intelligence chatbot that seemed to suggest it might be conscious. They unpack what that moment reveals about the state of AI, why ... Show More
22m 6s
Sep 2025
(#4) Elise’s Top Ten: The power of vulnerability | Brené Brown
Brené Brown studies human connection -- our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk, she shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity. A talk to share.Learn more about our fl ... Show More
21m 46s
Oct 2025
I’ll probably lose my job to AI. Here’s why that’s OK | Megan J. McArdle
Artificial intelligence could cost many of us our careers — but that doesn’t mean we should stop its development, says journalist Megan J. McArdle. As she watches AI encroach on her own craft, she shares a fresh take on the 19th-century Luddites, who tried to destroy machines tha ... Show More
14m 11s
Jan 2025
Will AI ever ... feel?
Some scientists think an explosion of AI awareness and feeling might be just around the corner. Others think it’s impossible for an AI to ever become conscious. How will we know? Guest: Oshan Jarow, staff writer at Vox’s Future Perfect This episode was made in partnership with Vo ... Show More
26m 3s
May 2019
Chocolate Chicken Chicken Cake
If there's one thing that sets people apart from machines, it's creativity, right? Automation may take over certain jobs, but what happens when algorithms start to learn from our work to create their own? This episode, we speak with people using AI to generate films, poetry, musi ... Show More
29m 33s
Sep 2025
Richard Sutton – Father of RL thinks LLMs are a dead end
Richard Sutton is the father of reinforcement learning, winner of the 2024 Turing Award, and author of The Bitter Lesson. And he thinks LLMs are a dead end.After interviewing him, my steel man of Richard’s position is this: LLMs aren’t capable of learning on-the-job, so no matter ... Show More
1h 6m
Sep 2024
Quantum computers aren't what you think — they're cooler | Hartmut Neven
Quantum computers obtain superpowers by tapping into parallel universes, says Hartmut Neven, the founder and lead of Google Quantum AI. He explains how this emerging tech can far surpass traditional computers by relying on quantum physics rather than binary logic, and shares a ro ... Show More
12m 18s