Can This Spiritual Technology Help You Survive AI? | Roger Wolfson | TEDxPacific Avenue
NOTE FROM TED: This talk only represents the speaker’s personal views and understanding of manifestation, health, and performance. Several claims lack legitimate scientific support. We've flagged this talk because it falls outside the content guidelines TED gives TEDx organizers. TEDx events are independently organized by volunteers. The guidelines we give TEDx organizers are described in more detail here: http://storage.ted.com/tedx/manuals/tedx_content_guidelines.pdfIn this mind-expanding TED Talk, screenwriter, speechwriter, and former Senate staffer Roger Wolfson shares how manifestation—long dismissed as mysticism—is actually a powerful, scientifically-supported tool that could be humanity’s most important defense against artificial intelligence.Through compelling studies, ancient wisdom, and personal experience, Roger reframes manifestation as a form of spiritual technology—one that can influence not just mood or mindset, but biology, luck, and even the physical world. He explores how emotions and belief systems create tangible outcomes—and why that makes manifestation something AI can never replicate.With humor, heart, and evidence from both neuroscience and religious traditions, this talk is a call to action: before AI reshapes our world, let’s rediscover the tools that shape ourselves.Roger Wolfson has written for five TV series, including Law and Order: SVU, Century City (starring Viola Davis), Saving Grace (starring Holly Hunter), and The Closer, where one of his episodes earned Kyra Sedgwick an Emmy nomination. He has sold two feature films and eleven pilots with producers like Charlize Theron, Denis Leary, and Neal Moritz.He has been counsel to U.S. Senators Joe Lieberman, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Paul Wellstone, Congresswomen Rosa Delauro and Mary Gay Scanlon, and written speeches for world leaders including Joe Biden, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. He earned a JD from the University of Pennsylvania, a Masters in Writing from Johns Hopkins, and a BA from Vassar. He is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court bar.Wolfson lectures on spirituality, animal rights, and emotional storytelling techniques, and has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and NBC. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
More from TED
- 16:12Midway in the Sky: Rethinking Urban Life | YI LU | TEDxTheBundStarting from her own artistic dreams, Lu Yi takes the audience on a journey through the history of human transportation, showing how each leap forward has redefined spatial patterns and reshaped society. As two-dimensional transport can no longer meet the demands of urban growth, the rise of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) opens new horizons for city mobility—with greater safety, lower noise, and improved performance and cost efficiency. She unpacks key industry challenges such as technological breakthroughs, noise control, and safety systems, and uses real accident cases to highlight the vital role of ducted design. Standing at the crossroads of electrification and digitalization, Lu sees the low-altitude economy not merely as a new transportation sector, but as a strategic frontier for global competition and a leap in human civilization. From this “midway” vantage point in the skies, she envisions not only untapped physical space, but also limitless new connections—between people, and between cultures. Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of INFLYNC This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
- 13:24Treatment Technology for Stroke | LiPing LIU | TEDxTheBundFor over three decades, Liu Li Ping has been racing against stroke. She led the landmark “CHANCE” clinical trial—the first from China published in The New England Journal of Medicine—reducing patients’ 90-day recurrence rate from 11.7% to 8.2%, and further down to 6% in subsequent studies, rewriting global treatment guidelines and saving millions of lives. Her team developed domestically produced thrombolytic drugs, ending reliance on expensive imports, and combined them with AI imaging systems to cut treatment times from 120 minutes to just 20, extending the treatment window from 4.5 hours to 24. For Liu, victory in medicine is never a finish line—it is the courage to leave the comfort zone, to move from saving one life to transforming an entire field, and to keep going where the road runs long. Chief Scientist, Neurology Center, Beijing Tiantan Hospital This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx