Ideas worth spreading

TED2013

February 2013

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The interspecies internet? An idea in progress

Apes, dolphins and elephants are animals with remarkable communication skills. Could the internet be expanded to include sentient species like them? A new and developing idea from a panel of four great thinkers -- dolphin researcher Diana Reiss, musician Peter Gabriel, internet of things visionary Neil Gershenfeld and Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet.

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Apes, dolphins and elephants are animals with remarkable communication skills. Could the internet be expanded to include sentient species like them? A new and developing idea from a panel of four great thinkers -- dolphin researcher Diana Reiss, musician Peter Gabriel, internet of things visionary Neil Gershenfeld and Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the internet.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speakers

Cognitive psychologist

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Diana Reiss studies animal cognition, and has found that bottlenose dolphins (and Asian elephants) can recognize themselves in the mirror.

Musician, activist

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Peter Gabriel writes incredible songs but, as the co-founder of WITNESS and TheElders.org, is also a powerful human rights advocate.

Neil Gershenfeld

Physicist, personal fab pioneer

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As Director of MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms, Neil Gershenfeld explores the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds.

Computer scientist

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Vint Cerf, now the chief Internet evangelist at Google, helped lay the foundations for the internet as we know it more than 30 years ago.