TEDxManhattanBeach - Barry Ptolemy - Transcendent Man November 8, 2011

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Talk title: Transcendent Man: a documentary about inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil

To understand the future of education - indeed the future of anything - we must understand the role that technology will play in our future. Barry's film Transcendent Man explores the ideas of Ray Kurzweil, who offers us the law of "accelerating returns." Throughout history, each new technology has been built upon previous ones, and each new wave of ideas has been accepted more rapidly than the last. From the Gutenberg printing press to the telephone to the massive early computers, to the PC and on to the iPhone, we're headed for a world of artificial intelligence, in which computers will one day be small enough to fit inside a red blood cell. We must embrace change, or be swept away by it. As publishing, music, health and manufacturing industries have radically changed, so will education. We can pair every student with a computer tablet, an object we ought to call a "gateway to all human knowledge."

At age twelve, Barry Ptolemy worked and studied closely alongside director Steven Spielberg on the set of E.T., The Extra Terrestrial and became a filmmaker himself. After attending USC film school, Barry's interest in the sciences led him to read Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near, upon which he based his first feature film, Transcendent Man. He also directed the commercial "We Are The World 25 For Haiti" featuring Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones -- the commercial aired during the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies. Barry was recently hailed as one of the new "power directors" by Los Angeles Confidential magazine.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. Our event is called TEDxManhattanBeach, where x = independently organized TED event. At our TEDxManhattanBeach event, TEDTalks video and live speakers will combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events, including ours, are self-organized.