With technical advancement comes great ethical responsibility. In these talks, amazing, life-altering feats of science make us ask: How could we mess this up?

In this fun and nerdy talk, ethics professor Christopher Robichaud explains how he worked the key principles of Dungeons & Dragons into an ethics simulation used to train future policymakers at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

One big ethical question looms over the excitement about the potential of big data: how do we maintain privacy while gleaning insight from all of this collected information? Marie Wallace offers some fresh thinking on the topic, such as radical transparency on how retailers use ads to target certain demographics.

Paul Root Wolpe examines the ethical implications of new science -- genetic modification, neuroscience and other breakthroughs that stretch our current philosophy to the breaking point. He's the chief bioethicist at NASA, among other appointments.

What if, this holiday season, instead of saying "thank you" to your aunt for her gift of a knitted sweater, the polite response expected from you was to show up at her house in a week with a better gift? Or to vote for her in the town election? Or let her adopt your firstborn child? Alex Gendler explains how all of these things might not sound s...

Self-driving cars are already cruising the streets today. And while these cars will ultimately be safer and cleaner than their manual counterparts, they can't completely avoid accidents altogether. How should the car be programmed if it encounters an unavoidable accident? Patrick Lin navigates the murky ethics of self-driving cars.

Mohamad Jebara loves mathematics -- but he's concerned that too many students grow up thinking that this beautiful, rewarding subject is difficult and boring. His company is experimenting with a bold idea: paying students for completing weekly math homework. He explores the ethics of this model and how it's helping students -- and why learning m...

You founded a company that manufactures meatless burgers that are sold in stores worldwide. But you've recently received awful news: three people in one city died after eating your burgers. A criminal has injected poison into your product! The deaths are headline news and sales have plummeted. How do you deal with the crisis? George Siedel and C...

Each year, one in seven large corporations commits fraud. Why? To find out, Alexander Wagner takes us inside the economics, ethics and psychology of doing the right thing. Join him for an introspective journey down the slippery slopes of deception as he helps us understand why people behave the way they do.

This is episode 10 of our animated series "Think Like A Coder." This 10-episode narrative follows a girl, Ethic, and her robot companion, Hedge, as they attempt to save the world. The two embark on a quest to collect three artifacts and must solve their way through a series of programming puzzles. [Directed by Kozmonot Animation Studio, narrated...

We can evolve bacteria, plants and animals -- futurist Juan Enriquez asks: Is it ethical to evolve the human body? In a visionary talk that ranges from medieval prosthetics to present day neuroengineering and genetics, Enriquez sorts out the ethics associated with evolving humans and imagines the ways we'll have to transform our own bodies if we...

Geneticist Jennifer Doudna co-invented a groundbreaking new technology for editing genes, called CRISPR-Cas9. The tool allows scientists to make precise edits to DNA strands, which could lead to treatments for genetic diseases ... but could also be used to create so-called "designer babies." Doudna reviews how CRISPR-Cas9 works -- and asks the s...

Pepper spray, Tasers, tear gas, rubber bullets -- these "non-lethal" weapons are being used by more and more local police forces, as well as military forces brought in to control civilian crowds and other situations. Despite their name, non-lethal weapons have been known to cause deaths ... and as Stephen Coleman suggests, there are other, more ...

Stephen Coleman studies applied ethics, particularly the ethics of military and police force, and their application to human rights.

Machine intelligence is here, and we're already using it to make subjective decisions. But the complex way AI grows and improves makes it hard to understand and even harder to control. In this cautionary talk, techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci explains how intelligent machines can fail in ways that don't fit human error patterns -- and in ways w...

Danielle Allen is an expert on the intersection of ethics and democracy.

Kelly Richmond Pope researches organizational misconduct, ethics and fraud.

Jonathan Marks works at the intersections of ethics, law and policy -- writing and speaking about torture, obesity, fracking, health care and other pressing issues of our time.

Based in Bulgaria, Steve Keil creates companies around big social and environmental goals.

Over the past 35 years Peter Saul has been intimately involved in the dying process for over 4,000 patients. He is passionate about improving the ways we die.

Sometimes controversial, always practical ethicist Peter Singer stirs public debate about morality, from animal welfare to global poverty.

Kwame Anthony Appiah is a philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist. His latest book is "The Honor Code," exploring moral revolutions.

TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. In Climate Change, speakers give talks that boldly illuminate the nature and scale of current-day climate science, policy and ethics. They explore the economics and psych...

Liene Ozoliņa teaches sociology and researches post-socialist politics and culture.

Think of Surya Mattu as a data detective. As he writes: "I am interested in figuring out the ways in which algorithmic systems harm people."

Anthropologist and media scholar Mary L. Gray focuses on how the everyday use of technology (including artificial intelligence) transforms our lives -- for better and worse.

Rodrigo Canales wants to understand how individuals influence organizations or systems--even those as complex as the Mexican drug cartels.

Michael Patrick Lynch examines truth, democracy, public discourse and the ethics of technology in the age of big data.

Britt Wray's work is about life and what we make of it: past, present and future.

Philosopher Thomas Pogge wants to ensure medications get to those who need it most. He has published on a wide range of subjects such as global justice and human rights.