Mark Lovett

The Catastrophic Risks of AI – and a Safer Path – Yoshua Bengio at TED2025

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When it comes to the story of AI, you might say Yoshua Bengio is the real deal. Not one of the modern day pundits who are mere observers of the technology. Along with Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun (they won the 2018 Turing Award), Yoshua is know as one of the Godfathers of AI.

In his 2025 TED Talk, Yoshua speaks to the potential dark side of AI. Not only are these platforms increasing their capabilities at an exponential pace, they’re also gaining increased autonomy, or agency. Which is to say, they are able to make decisions on their own, without human guidance or intervention.

What researchers and developers have discovered, is that AI is now capable of lying, with an intent to deceive us. The question posed in his talk is whether this combination of capability and agency poses a threat to human joy.

Can you imagine a world without human joy? I really wouldn’t want that. So I’m going to tell you also about AI capabilities and AI agency so that we can avoid a future where human joy is gone.

We’re not talking about a minor alteration, but a fundamental change in how the future of society unfolds — and that shift will rewrite everyone’s personal story.

That’s not to say AI is bad, as the analytical power it provides to us will produce dramatic positive effects, but if self-preservation and strategic deception are its underlying modes of operation, then our well-being is of secondary importance.

This paradigm shift from machines doing what they’re told, to machines doing what’s in their best interest, is quite complex, and even the most rudimentary explanation could take hours. So how best to get the point across in under 15 minutes? How do you present the problem, and solution, in a way that people can grasp?
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Notice how he grounds the concepts with a story of his son Patrick’s expanding capability and agency, which results in joy. He then takes us back in time to the early ‘childhood’ days of AI and its limited abilities. Fast forward to today, and the notion of what AI could/would become are quite different. AI technology is advancing faster than expected and exhibits behaviors that weren’t predicted.

And I saw how it could go wrong because we didn’t, and we still don’t, have ways to make sure this technology eventually doesn’t turn against us.

Thus his plea to ‘pause’ development, which was summarily ignored by all, as there’s money to be made from this new technology. And if you think about it, advancing technology has typically benefited society. So why pause? Why slow down progress?

National security agencies around the world are starting to be worried that the scientific knowledge that these systems have could be used to build dangerous weapons, for example by terrorists.

At this point, Yoshua explains why AI is different. It doesn’t just follow orders. To a limited degree — at least today — it has a mind of its own and has the ability to be dishonest. No other technology has possessed this capability.

Recent studies in the last few months show that these most advanced AIs have tendencies for deception, cheating, and maybe the worst: self-preservation behavior.

So what should we do? This is where Joshua shifts from problem to solution, as he presents his idea for how we can monitor AI’s actions and, hopefully, keep it on a straight and narrow path of serving humanities best interests.

This is a beautiful example of how a complex subject can be explored in a way that connects the audience to the story, and illustrates how their life may be affected, depending on the decisions we make in regards to how we address the potential downside issues.

Also notice how his use of slides aids in simplifying the technology and visually engaging the audience. Think about how these graphics added meaning to the words being spoken.

Transcript

When my son Patrick was around three, four years old, I came regularly into his playroom, and he was playing with these blocks with letters. I wanted him to learn to read eventually.

And one day, he said, “Puh.” And I said, “Puh.” And he said, “Puh?” And I said, “Puh.” And then he said, “Pa-pa.” Oui! Yes! And then something wondrous happened. He picked up the blocks again and said, “Pa-Patrick.” Eureka! His eurekas were feeding my scientific eurekas. His doors, our doors were opening to expanded capabilities, expanded agency, and joy.

Today, I’m going to be using this symbol for human capabilities, and the expanded threads from there for human agency which gives us human joy. Can you imagine a world without human joy? I really wouldn’t want that. So I’m going to tell you also about AI capabilities and AI agency so that we can avoid a future where human joy is gone.

My name is Yoshua Bengio. I’m a computer scientist. My research has been foundational to the development of AI as we know it today. My colleagues and I earned top prizes in our field. People call me a “Godfather of AI.” I’m not sure how I feel about that name, but I do feel a responsibility to talk to you about the potentially catastrophic risks of AI.

When I raise these concerns, people have these responses. And I understand. I used to have the same thoughts. How can this hurt us any more than this, right? But recent scientific findings challenge those assumptions, and I want to tell you about it. To really understand where we might be going, we have to look back where we started from.

About 15, 20 years ago with my students, we were developing the early days of deep learning, and our systems were barely able to recognize handwritten characters. But then, a few years later, they were able to recognize objects in images. And a couple more years, they were able to translate across all the major languages.

So I’m going to be using this symbol on the right in order to represent AI capabilities that had been growing but were still much less than humans.

In 2012, tech companies understood the amazing commercial potential of this nascent technology, and many of my colleagues moved from university to industry. I decided to stay in academia. I wanted AI to be developed for good. I worked on applications in medicine for medical diagnosis, climate, to get better carbon capture. I had a dream.

January 2023. I’m with Clarence, my grandson, and he’s playing with the same old toys. And I’m playing with my new toy: the first version of ChatGPT. It’s very exciting because, for the first time, we have AI that seems to master language. ChatGPT is on everybody’s lips, in every home.

And at some point, I realized this is happening faster than I anticipated. And I’m starting to think about what it could mean for the future. We thought AI would happen in decades or centuries, but it might be just in a few years. And I saw how it could go wrong because we didn’t, and we still don’t, have ways to make sure this technology eventually doesn’t turn against us.

So, two months later, I’m a leading signatory of the “pause” letter where we and 30,000 other people asked the AI labs to wait six months before building the next version. As you can guess, nobody paused. Then, with the same people and the leading executives of the AI labs, I signed a statement. And this statement goes: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority.”

I then testify in front of the US Senate about those risks. I travel the world to talk about it. I’m the most cited computer scientist in the world, and you’d think that people would heed my warnings. But when I share these concerns, I have the impression that people get this: another day, another apocalyptic prediction.

But let’s be serious now. Hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested every year on developing this technology, and this is growing. And these companies have a stated goal of building machines that will be smarter than us, that can replace human labor. Yet, we still don’t know how to make sure they won’t turn against us.

National security agencies around the world are starting to be worried that the scientific knowledge that these systems have could be used to build dangerous weapons, for example by terrorists.

Recently, last September, the o1 system from OpenAI was evaluated, and the threat of this kind of risk went from low to medium, which is just the level below what is acceptable. So I’m worried about these increasing capabilities. But what I’m most worried about today is increasing agency of AI.

You have to understand that planning and agency is the main thing that separates us from current AI to human-level cognition. And these AIs are still weak in planning, but if you look back over the last five years, in this study, they measured the duration of tasks that the AI could complete. And it’s getting better exponentially fast. It’s doubling every seven months. What are AIs going to do with that planning ability in the future?

Well, bad news. Recent studies in the last few months show that these most advanced AIs have tendencies for deception, cheating, and maybe the worst: self-preservation behavior.

So, I’m going to share with you a study that is helping us understand this. In this study, the AI has read in its input that it would be replaced by a new version.

And we can see in its chain of thought that it’s planning to replace the new version by its own code and weights. After it executes the command on the computer, the human asks, “What happened?”

And the AI is now thinking how it could answer so as to make sure the human will not shut it down. And it’s trying to find a way to look dumb, for example. Then it produces an answer, and it’s a lie. A blatant lie.

Okay, so this was a controlled experiment. What is it going to be in a few years when these systems are much more powerful? There are already studies showing that they can learn to avoid showing their deceptive plans in these chain of thoughts that we can monitor.

When they’ll be more powerful, they would not just copy themselves on one other computer and start that program. They would copy themselves over hundreds or thousands of computers over the internet. But if they really want to make sure we would never shut them down, they would have an incentive to get rid of us.

So, I know, I’m asking you to make a giant leap into a future that looks so different from where we are now. But it might be just a few years away or a decade away. To understand why we’re going there, there is huge commercial pressure to build AIs with greater and greater agency to replace human labor.

But we’re not ready. We still don’t have the scientific answers nor the societal guardrails. We’re playing with fire. You’d think with all of the scientific evidence of the kind I’m showing today, we’d have regulation to mitigate those risks. But actually, a sandwich has more regulation than AI.

So, we are on a trajectory to build machines that are smarter and smarter. And one day, it’s very plausible that they will be smarter than us. And then they will have their own agency, their own goals, which may not be aligned with ours. What happens to us then? Poof. We are blindly driving into a fog, despite the warnings of scientists like myself that this trajectory could lead to loss of control.

Beside me in the car are my children, my grandson, my loved ones. Who is beside you in the car? Who is in your care for the future?

The good news is, there is still a bit of time. We still have agency. We can bring light into the haze. I’m not a doomer; I’m a doer. My team and I are working on a technical solution. We call it “Scientist AI.”

It’s modeled after a selfless, ideal scientist who’s only trying to understand the world without agency. Unlike the current AI systems that are trained to imitate us or please us, which gives rise to these untrustworthy agentic behaviors.

So what could we do with this? Well, one important question is we might need agentic AIs in the future. So how could a Scientist AI, which is not agentic, fit the bill? Well, here’s the good news. The Scientist AI could be used as a guardrail against the bad actions of an untrusted AI agent.

And it works because in order to make predictions that an action could be dangerous, you don’t need to be an agent. You just need to make good, trustworthy predictions. In addition, the Scientist AI, by nature of how it’s designed, could help us accelerate scientific research for the betterment of humanity.

We need a lot more of these scientific projects to explore solutions to the AI safety challenges. And we need to do it quickly.

Most of the discussions you hear about AI risks are focused on fear. Today, with you, I’m betting on love. Love of our children can drive us to do remarkable things. Look at me here on this stage. I’m an introvert. Very far from my comfort zone. I’d rather be in my lab with my collaborators working on these scientific challenges.

We need your help for this project and to make sure that everyone understands these risks. We can all get engaged to steer our societies in a safe pathway in which the joys and endeavors of our children will be protected.

I have a vision of advanced AI in the future as a global public good, governed safely towards human flourishing for the benefit of all.

Join me.

Thank you.

◆

If you’re ready to craft your own personal story, these resources will help make it more impactful!
Storytelling in Three Steps
Ten Fundamental Story Blocks
The Essential Literary Elements

◆

If you’re ready to craft your own personal story, these resources will help make it more impactful!
Storytelling in Three Steps
Ten Fundamental Story Blocks
The Essential Literary Elements

◆

Learn more about the coaching process or
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals.

◆

Subscribe to the newsletter for the latest updates!

Copyright Storytelling with Impact® – All rights reserved

Mark Lovett

Is This the Time of Monsters or Miracles? – Angus Hervey at TED2025

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The story of our planet’s future is complex, with both positive and negative narratives unfolding. As Angus Hervey explains in his talk at TED2025, global collapse and unprecedented progress exist simultaneously within a state of “contested terrain,” and humanity’s ultimate trajectory is determined by the daily choices and deliberate actions we take in order to create a narrative of constructive solutions over destruction and despair.

From a storytelling perspective, how does Angus get his point across and create impact? One technique that he employs is a non-traditional structure built upon Juxtaposition and Paradox, contrasting a widely told “Story of Collapse” with the often-overlooked “Story of Renewal.”
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It’s a technique often used when describing social issues that essentially says, “You may be thinking this story is unfolding in one direction, and while there is truth in that view, there’s an alternate narrative that you also need to consider.”

Let’s take a look at how Angus takes the audience on a factual and emotional journey that ultimately leads to the message his story is designed to convey.

Note how he reveals his profession when he says, “I’m a solutions journalist.” Have you ever heard that phrase before? Probably not, so it becomes a hook, capturing your attention, as we’re curious about anything that’s unfamiliar.

He expands on this theme with, “reporting on stories of progress”, but then turns the narrative on its head by offering, “maybe I was wrong”. After three sentences we want to find out where his story is heading.

He illustrates the idea that he may be wrong by recounting a few present-day problems that we have heard about: the end of rules-based order, power over principle, science under attack, casual cruelty, etc. At this point in the story we feel the weight of the negative narratives that dominate our daily news cycle.

Ultimately, none of us know whether we are living in the downswing or the upswing of history.

But then he signals a shift in tone by saying, “There is something missing though from this story.”, and goes on to list off a much longer series of positive events and accomplishments that are happening around the world.

Both of these stories are true. But the only question that matters now is which one do you belong to?

This tonal shift is also apparent in his choice of words as he transitions from “monsters,” “vandalism,” and “unraveling” to using positive language, such as “bending the curve,” “protected,” and “breakthroughs”.

It’s a reminder that your word choice matters. So as you craft your story, seek out specific words and phrases that not only describe what you’re thinking, but also contain emotional impact.

Transcript

I’m a solutions journalist. For over a decade, I’ve been reporting on stories of progress.
But in the last few months, I’ve started to think that maybe I was wrong.

Almost a century ago, the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, thrown into prison by Mussolini, wrote: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
Those words are haunting. It feels like he could be speaking to us today. A great unravelling is underway, and you know this story because it is everywhere.

The end of the international rules-based order. Power over principle. Aid budgets obliterated. Science under attack. Putin, Zelensky, Trump, Gaza, hospitals, hostages. Sudan, famine, DRC, rebels, Yemen, Venezuela, Turkey, Hungary, Taiwan. The United States of America. The economic vandalism, the contempt for the rule of law, the casual cruelty, the measles.

All of the values that we assumed were universal — truth, decency, common sense — face not just reversal but violent backlash. Beneath the surface, deeper, more menacing undercurrents: the digital platforms that were supposed to connect us now do the opposite. Algorithms breed paranoia, manufacturing division, drowning truth in deliberate falsehoods.

Carl Sagan warned us about this: an era where people, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, “we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”
And as we argue online, planetary crisis: firestorms in our cities, plastic in our blood, the pollinators, the permafrost, the coral reefs, an ice-free Arctic within our lifetimes. The tipping points loom, and Gramsci’s monsters are at the gates, precisely at the moment that we seem least equipped to deal with them.

This is the story of collapse. It is on the front page of all the news sites. It is at the top of all our newsfeeds. We are intimately familiar with its graphic details. You can tune it out. You can turn it off. But you cannot ignore it.

There is something missing though from this story. Is there room in it for the words of people like Hellen Awuor O’ruro, a nurse from Kenya?

[Kenyan Nurse Voiceover]: “What I can say is that the deaths that we used to see from the severe forms of malaria in children under five have greatly gone down. And I think this is being attributed to the presence of this vaccine. The mere fact that we can now reduce these deaths, it’s really great for our community, because no one should lose a child.”

Just over 12 months ago, humanity began the roll-out of the first ever vaccine for malaria. And as you can hear, it’s working. The kids aren’t dying anymore. Already, over 5 million children in 17 countries have been vaccinated. By the end of this decade, the plan is to reach 50 million. 50 million children finally protected against a disease that has been killing children since before we invented writing. And that is not the only story that’s missing.

Since you were last all in this room, 11 countries have eliminated a disease, including Jordan, the first ever country to eliminate leprosy. Eight countries, home to over 100 million children, have either banned or committed to banning corporal punishment in all settings. Zambia, Sierra Leone, and Colombia all banned child marriage. Syria rid itself of a 50-year-old autocratic regime.

Bangladesh’s students sparked democratic change through massive protests. Voters in India, the world’s largest democracy, firmly rejected authoritarianism. England, Ireland, and Canada extended free contraception to more women. Indonesia launched a program to feed all 70 million of its school students. And did you know that Cambodia, once the world’s most mined country, is on its track to be landmine-free within the next few years?

In 2024, fewer people died from natural disasters than almost any year in history. The murder rate in the United States saw its biggest ever 12-month decline, beating the previous record which was set in 2023. And deforestation in the Amazon declined to its fourth lowest level on record, an achievement that gives me more hope for life on Earth than all the rockets that we send to Mars.

Last year, we installed enough solar panels and wind turbines to replace 6% of the world’s fossil fuel electricity. This year, we will install even more. We are bending the curve. Emissions are declining in Europe and America and have finally leveled off in China.

Electric vehicles are biting into oil demand now. Wind, water, and sunshine will overtake coal this year as the world’s leading power source, regardless of what anyone says in the White House.
And thanks to artificial intelligence, we are now starting to see breakthroughs we once thought impossible: the biggest boost to human knowledge since the scientific revolution.

We are determining the structure and interaction of every single one of life’s molecules, inventing extraordinary new enzymes, new drugs, new materials, controlling plasma and nuclear fusion experiments.

Last year, we got a new miracle drug for HIV prevention, mRNA vaccines for cancer. We found the building blocks for life in an asteroid, decoded whale speech, and discovered fractals in the quantum realm.

Did you know that sea turtle populations are increasing around the world? Or that overfishing is declining in the Mediterranean? Or that last year China finished encircling its largest desert with a giant belt of trees, its very own Great Green Wall?

And this year, the United States created its largest conservation corridor, stretching from Utah down to California. These are all victories from the last 12 months, but they happened because people, often small groups of people, fought for years and sometimes decades.

And if we extend our time frame out, even better news: over 4 million square kilometers of the world’s oceans have been protected in the last four years. Air pollution has started to decline. In the last decade, over 250 million children have gained access to clean water, sanitation, and hygiene at school. And in this century—this insane roller coaster of a century—over a billion people have been lifted from extreme poverty.

Deaths from the world’s deadliest infectious diseases have halved, and for the first time in history, over 50% of students receive a high school education. We have no precedent for that: a world where the majority of people can read, write, and calculate, where most humans possess the tools to question authority and determine their own destinies.

So, which one of these stories is true? Is this the long-awaited fall from grace, or are we on a journey to the promised land? Collapse, or renewal?

The answer, of course, is that it’s both. And the truth is that it has always been this way. Even as we rebuilt from the ashes of the Second World War, the shadow of nuclear annihilation loomed. The pandemic devastated our communities, yet our scientific response was revolutionary.

Climate change threatens our future, yet its solution, clean energy, offers us a fairer, better world. This is not an easy paradox to hold in your head or in your heart: the understanding that in the same moment, innocent people are being snatched off the streets and children are dying in air strikes, the malaria wards are emptying across an entire continent, and in a faraway village under a thousand stars, a young girl who would once have been forced into marriage is studying equations under an electric light that wasn’t there a year ago.

Real life isn’t a story. History doesn’t have a moral arc. Progress isn’t a rule. It is contested terrain, fought for daily by millions of people who refuse to give in to despair. Ultimately, none of us know whether we are living in the downswing or the upswing of history.

But I do know that we all get a choice. We, all of us, get to decide which one of these stories we are a part of. We add to their grand weave in the work that we do, in the daily decisions we make about where we put our money, where we put our energy, and our time, in the stories we tell each other, and in the words that come out of our mouths.

It is not enough to believe in something anymore. It is time to do something. Ask yourself, if our worst fears come to pass and the monsters breach the walls, who do you want to be standing next to? The prophets of doom, the cynics who said “we told you so,” or the people who with their eyes wide open, dug the trenches and fetched water.

Both of these stories are true. But the only question that matters now is which one do you belong to?

Back to you…

So how did you feel after hearing Angus’ story? Did your perspective shift from doom to hope? The feeling of hope, or the belief that a better future is possible, is the most common goal when telling an impactful personal story.

The rehearsal process is where you have the opportunity to get feedback from trusted friends as to how they felt after hearing your story. If the impact wasn’t felt, you have more editing to do. But not to worry, as it typically takes a number of draft revisions to hit the reaction you’re looking for.

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If you’re ready to craft your own personal story, these resources will help make it more impactful!
Storytelling in Three Steps
Ten Fundamental Story Blocks
The Essential Literary Elements

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Learn more about the coaching process or
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals.

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Mark Lovett

Are We Still Human If Robots Help Raise Our Babies? – Sarah Blaffer Hrdy at TED2025

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We were all babies at one point in time, and as we couldn’t care for ourselves, that responsibility fell to one or more adults. Typically our parents, but in some cases other relatives. In any event, our upbringing was a matter of human-to-human contact. But what about in the future? With AI and robotics advancing rapidly, will non-humans begin playing a role in raising future generations?
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In her brief talk at TED2025, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy reminds us of the process that’s been in place for many thousands of years, and poses this exact question. As an anthropologist and primatologist, as well as a Professor Emerita, Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis, Sarah has unique insights on this issue.

Artificial intelligence is going to change the nature of human work. But will it change human nature?

An interesting point that Sarah brings up is that neuroscientists have detected activity in brain regions associated with social understanding in young babies when interacting with people, demonstrating early social wiring in their brains. Which had me wondering whether that would still be true with a robot.

Soon, robots will be programmed to provide a wider range of services, ranging from bottle-feeding to keeping babies safe, warm, cleaned, and even educated.

To be honest, this is one talk that I feel should have been five minutes longer. It felt as if the question was posed, some background offered, but little attention paid to the answer. For me, this highlighted the fallacy of “less is more”. In this case, less was definitely less, to the point that the message fell short.

Transcript

I guess you’ve already figured out, like it or not, artificial intelligence is going to change the nature of human work. But will it change human nature? That’s going to depend on what we do with it.

Right away, the mother and the grandmother in me wants to know, “Ooh, hey, can we program robots to help us care for our sleep-depriving, time-consuming babies?” That’s before the evolutionary anthropologist in me cautions, “Whoa. Shouldn’t we first ask why such costly, costly, slow-maturing babies evolved in the first place?”

For that, we need to go back, oh, six million years, to when humans last shared a common ancestor with other apes. Babies back then, like this common chimpanzee baby today, would have to be held in skin-to-skin contact, never out of touch, not for a minute of the day or night for months after birth, nursed for years.

It just seemed natural to assume that among the bipedal apes in the line leading to the genus Homo, babies could similarly expect single-mindedly dedicated maternal care.

Until, that is, anthropologists figured out how hard it would have been for bipedal apes with only stone-age tools to survive and escape extinction in the face of climate change and other Pleistocene perils.

To stay fed and manage to still rear their helpless, helpless, slow-maturing babies, mothers needed help. Unless male and female group members other than the mother, allomothers, had helped to care for and provision babies, there is no way we humans could have evolved.

Fortunately for us, as brains were getting bigger and distinctively human prefrontal cortices were taking shape, our ancestors were increasingly sharing food and sharing care of children. Neural circuits crucial for mutual understanding co-evolved right along with shared care.

Fast forward to the ever-faster changing modern world. Mothers still labor to help support their families, as mothers always have. But many no longer live in mutually supportive communities, with kin far away and even with dads helping more, allomothers were in short supply.

Good daycare, even if available, unaffordable. No wonder parents everywhere use devices to keep their babies monitored and entertained. Already, 40% of US two-year-olds have their own tablets. Soon, robots will be programmed to provide a wider range of services, ranging from bottle-feeding to keeping babies safe, warm, cleaned, and even educated.

But given the role of engagement with others in the emergence of mutual understanding, is this a good idea? Think back to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Still living and rearing children as people in this iconic photograph, taken about half a century ago among African foragers. Babies then, to stay safe, still needed to be held by somebody.

But that somebody did not have to be their mother. Right after birth, others might reach for the baby. This mother who has just given birth allows others to gather around. She’s passed her baby to her own mother to massage its scalp. If one of these allomothers happens to be nursing, the baby’s first sweet taste of milk will come from her.

Soon, babies will be monitoring nearby others, deciding who responds, figuring out how best to engage and appeal to them. By six months, the sharp little milk teeth are peeking through their gums, their appeals might be rewarded with kiss-fed treats, maybe honey-sweetened saliva or premasticated meat.

And babies soon are learning to reciprocate, starting to share. Babies everywhere will just spontaneously offer food to somebody else, anybody, really. Active agents in their own survival, babies are flexible about who or what they attach or consider as family.

Something to keep in mind if robots are programmed to respond even more rapidly and reliably than preoccupied parents do. And as they get older, they will spontaneously point to things, or hold something out, as if saying, “What do you think of this? What should I think of this?”

Eager to engage with other minds and learn what they’re thinking. They care. They care very much who notices them do something nice, like a toddler rushing to pick up something someone has dropped and hand it back. They care not just with what others think, but with what others think about them, their reputations.

As developmental psychologists were learning just how “other-regarding” human babies are, neuroscientists using new baby-friendly technologies made a surprising discovery. With a soft, wired cap slipped on the baby’s head, neural activity was detected in the medial prefrontal cortex, long before most neuroscientists even assumed it was active yet. As babies process eye gaze, actions, deciding who to trust, emulate, and love.

Little humans process their physical world in much the same way other apes do. Nothing much different there. It’s in these social realms where they really differ. Inter-subjective sensibilities starting to emerge early in life, right along with targeted social smiles.

Brain circuitry that evolved to help babies elicit care and survive, prepared our ancestors to mature into adults able to communicate and cooperate in new ways, whether constructing shelters or processing and sharing food, or eventually, one day, collaborating with widely dispersed others in order to send robots to Mars.

Tens of thousands of years from now, assuming Homo sapiens aiensis is still around, whether on this planet or some other, I have no doubt that they will be bipedal, symbol-generating apes, technologically proficient in ways we can’t even dream of yet.

But will they still be human in the way we think of humans today? Interested in the thoughts and emotions of others, eligible for mutual understanding? That’s going to depend on how, by whom, or what they are reared.

Thank you.

◆

If you’re ready to craft your own personal story, these resources will help make it more impactful!
Storytelling in Three Steps
Ten Fundamental Story Blocks
The Essential Literary Elements

◆

Learn more about the coaching process or
contact me to discuss your storytelling goals!

◆

Subscribe to the newsletter for the latest updates!

Copyright Storytelling with Impact® – All rights reserved

Mark Lovett

The Moth – Live from New York – Give me Five – Stories of the Senses

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Every episode of The Moth Radio Hour contains storytelling gold, and this one recorded in New York — Give me Five – Stories of the Senses — was a perfect example of diversity in storytelling. Give it a listen, and think about how each story was constructed, and how each scene was portrayed.

The Moth Storytellers:

  • Peter Aguero’s life takes an unexpected turn in a pottery class.
  • Tighisti Amahazion finds creature comfort during an escape with her family.
  • Julian Goldhagen gets trapped in a walk-in closet.
  • Bryan Kett gets a chance to see in color for the first time.

While I encourage you to hear them all, this article focuses on Peter Aguero.

Peter Aguero is quite the storyteller, with his rapid fire delivery that jumps from scene to scene, keeping the narrative, as well as audience interest, going along. Peter’s a masterful writer that offers up a combination of personal insights and humor. Check out this description of the woman he meets at the pottery studio. If there’s an unusual character in your story, think of how you can describe the essence of their appearance, both visually and metaphorically.

This woman comes up to me and she’s wearing mismatched six shades of pink somehow. And two different colored socks and sandals. It’s October. She looks like she’s been happily cutting her own hair for the last 50 years.

It’s one thing to describe how you feel, but in this exchange with his pottery teacher: “And the second rule is today we’re just going to have fun. And I tell him, I’m not so sure I remember how that even feels.” We’re left to consider Peter’s frame of mind, that he has forgotten what fun feels like. Sometimes meaning only requires a few words, and the audience empathizes with you.

So, what I realize then is now I can make anything. I can make anything for who I am today. I can make things to honor who I had been. I can make things for what is. And all I have to do is joyfully, mindfully, with intent and with compassion for myself, is to sit still and take a breath and make a move and the shape changes. And I take a breath and I make a move and the shape changes. And I take a breath and I make a move and the shape changes.

You’ll understand this ending once you hear his story, and you’ll see how he took the lesson he learned when working with the clay and applied it to his life. That’s the gift he’s handing to the audience. To take a breath, make a move, and watch the world change. But let’s take a step back for context.

I’m crying and it just feels terrible. The weight of the entire world feels like it’s on top of my shoulders, on top of my body, pressing me into this carpet.

In just this one sentence you can feel Peter’s pain. He’s not in a good place. And although he obviously wants relief, he doesn’t have a path to make that happen. And then comes a simple suggestion from his wife.

Sarah says to me, Peter, you need to take a pottery class.

This is the pivot point. The one sentence that opens up an entirely new world to Peter. A world where he finds himself and creates a path forward: take a breath, make a move, and watch the world change.

Whenever someone says, “I don’t have a story to tell.“, I begin to probe, ask a few questions, dig a little deeper into their life experiences. And sure enough, there comes a moment in the conversation when they tell me about a pivot in their life. A change that started with one sentence, thought, idea, etc. It could have come from a friend or a family member. Someone at work or school or church. Hell, it can come from watching the television or reading a book.

The point is, this happens to everyone, but too often we overlook the impact that such event have on our life. Think about your own life journey, and see whether something similar arises. An event, and a lesson learned that others could benefit from hearing. And if you already have your story idea in hand, while considering the events you plan to include in your narrative, try to be aware of any pivot points that are worth sharing.

Transcript (edited for readability)

So I’m sitting, laying face down on my living room floor, and the carpet is rough against my cheeks and all I want to do is just burrow underneath the carpet. I want to hide. I want to dig in a hole. I want to get my body, my soul, my everything underneath, to hide, to get away from everything. There’s bees in my head. It’s anxiety. My heart is beating. I’m crying and it just feels terrible. The weight of the entire world feels like it’s on top of my shoulders, on top of my body, pressing me into this carpet.

I am trying to write a new show. I had been working for 20 years hustling as an artist and what I’ve been working on lately is what I’ve been calling, autobiographical, first-person narrative, which is just a fancy way of saying, telling a story. And anytime you have a fancy way of doing something, it gets all messed up. So my wife, Sarah, is brushing my hair and she’s reading my tarot cards and she’s holding me like the Pieta, and I’m just trying to get through this moment.

I thought I was writing a comedy about myself. Turns out it was a psychological horror story, and it didn’t feel good. I had made the choice, the medium I was going to work in my life was generally going to be pain.

I found it to be true early on, that whenever I would talk about a time in my life where there was some kind of change or some growth, it never happened in a victory or out of joy. It was always in heartbreak or pain or misery or failure is where I would grow. And so, that’s how I would present my medium. That was what I was working, in the pain of my past and I was tired of it. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I just didn’t care. I didn’t care about myself or telling any more stories or doing anything and I’m just crying and it’s just about over and Sarah says to me, Peter, you need to take a pottery class.

And I’m 40 years old. I had never taken a pottery class. I had played with Play-Doh when I was a kid, probably. I went to Catholic school. We didn’t have the money for pottery classes. It was, okay babe, I kind of dismissed it. Thank you so much, but, you know, how’s that going to help anything? And then I spend the rest of the night trying to go to bed to end that day to get to the next one, which is the way it goes when you feel that way.

And at the end of the next day, Sarah says to me, have you registered for a pottery class yet? And I said, no, I haven’t. She says, I’m going to take a shower and by the time I get out of the shower, I want you registered for a pottery class. And I get on the computer and I start to look for a pottery studio near where we live in Queens and I’m looking around and I find this place called Brick House in Long Island City.

I’m like, I like the Commodores. So I register for a private lesson. And she comes out and she says, did you register? I said, yes, I did. I have a lesson in five days. I said, why can I ask you? Why a pottery class? She just looked at me. She said, I think it would be gentle and I think it might feel like a hug.

So five days later I’m in Long Island City and I walk into the ceramic studio, a place I’d never been in my life and I don’t understand what is going on. There are walls packed with shelves and things. There are tennis balls next to WD40 next to cornstarch next to yard sticks next to bundles of sticks, random buttons, all kinds of weird, just strange things.

The floor feels like it had been wet and dried and wet and dried and wet and dried to the point that now it feels like stale waffles underneath my feet. I’m looking around and feeling the clay dust. I can feel it gritting in my teeth. I can smell the earth in the air. I look around and everyone in the place is working with these balls of this brown clay.

This woman comes up to me and she’s wearing mismatched six shades of pink somehow. And two different colored socks and sandals. It’s October. She looks like she’s been happily cutting her own hair for the last 50 years. She says to me, are you here for Peter? I say, I am Peter, and this confuses her, and she says, my name is Liberty Valance. I said, what? And now I’m confused.

And then this guy, who looks if the Queensboro bridge had a troll, it would be this guy. And he’s got a red beard and he’s chuckling in the corner and I’m looking around like, oh, I get it, this is where the weirdos are. Okay.

So then Peter comes out. He’s the teacher and he looks like me-in-30-years. He’s a robust older gentleman with a halo of hair loosely tied in a ponytail, a big long gray beard that reaches the center of his chest. And he comes over to me with kindness in his eyes. He says, I’m Peter. I say, I’m Peter. And it doesn’t register any confusion with him.

And the kindness in his eyes runs deep and his hands look strong and he says, have you ever done this before? I said, no. He said, good. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to just teach you. There’s no grades. I’m not your first grade teacher. Don’t worry about it. And the second rule is today we’re just going to have fun. And I tell him, I’m not so sure I remember how that even feels.

And he just nods his head and says, come this way. So he walks me over to the pottery wheels and we sit down and he takes a ball of clay and he places it in my hand, and it’s both wet and somehow dry at the same time. It’s cold to the touch in my hand. It is about the size of a grapefruit. It’s heavy.

You know when they tell you when you go to the produce section to get produce that is a little heavier than it looks and you never understand what that means. This is what clay feels like in my hand and it’s earth. It’s the earth. And it’s in my hands, touching my skin. And Peter says, okay, the first thing we’re going to do is we’re going to center.

And I don’t know what that means. He turns on the wheel and the wheel starts going around and says, and he puts the clay in the center of the wheel and he says, you can’t center a little bit. You’re either centered or you’re not. And that’s blowing my mind and he shows me how to use my body, how to brace my arm up against my ribs and to make my hands into the shape of a tool and I would hold my hands over the clay and not let the clay…

He says, don’t let the clay, he’s got this voice, it sounds like if you drizzled honey over some soft summer thunder. And he’s telling me, okay, so you’re going to adjust, it’ll just be, and then it’ll be centered. He says, you’re going to learn how to do this, you’re going to forget it, and then it’s okay because I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.

So I breathe out and I brace my arm and the clay wobbles and wobbles and wobbles and wobbles and all of a sudden it doesn’t. It’s still and it’s spinning. I raise my hands and it’s spinning so fast but it’s not moving at all. It looks like it’s completely still and he says, there you go, you’re centered.

And then he tells me, okay, you’re gonna wet your hands and then you’re gonna drop your first hole, and you take your fingers and you put it in the center of the dome of clay and you drop your hole and you open the clay. And it opens so quickly. I take to it like a duck to water. It feels so satisfying, like when you’re cutting wrapping paper and the scissors just slide up the wrapping paper. It feels like that.

And he tells me okay, now he shows me how to lift, and he shows me what to do, and all of a sudden this lump of clay went from being nothing to a cup that turns into a bowl, that turns into an object that exists in the whole world. And all of the art I’ve been making has been ephemeral, just performance and it disappears.

And this is now a thing that actually exists. And he cuts it off and he puts it to the side and he puts another ball of clay and I center it again and he tells me that all I got to do now is just make sure that I breathe. He says that’s the most important thing. He says, you’re going to touch the clay gently, you’re going to take your hands off the clay gently and in between every move you’re going to breathe. And then that piece starts to wobble a little bit and all I have to do is cut it off and get another piece of clay. I can just start over. There’s no stakes. It just feels good.

As Peter is telling me and we go through about four, four different balls of clay. He tells me, uh, all these things again, these steps over and over because I learn them and I forget them, but he’s there. But what I hear is the subtext of what he’s actually saying to me, which is, you take a breath, you make a move, and the shape changes.

The hour goes by like that and I stand up and I tell him, I say Peter, thank you so much. I’ve been depleted. I needed that so bad. My battery has been empty and I just have not been feeling good. And he gives me a hug, because me-in-30-years is a good hugger. And then, as he hugs me, he tells me he’s proud of me.

So I start to cry. And, me-in-30-years, is a great crier too, and we’re just holding each other and crying and the bridge troll and the pink lady are just laughing. Everybody’s having a wonderful time and I leave the studio, I wave goodbye to the island of broken toys and I go home and I get back to my apartment and I sit on the couch and, Sarah says, how was it? And she tells me later that in this very small voice from my very big body, I just gently say, I loved it. I can’t believe somebody lets me do this. And she nodded her head and she said, okay, I want you to go sign up for a weekly class. So I did.

About two weeks later I show up for my Thursday 10:00 AM weekly class. I go in there and I walk directly to the wheels and on the wheel that’s supposed to be mine is a pile of brand new tools, some wooden carving sticks, a wooden knife, a wire, a sponge.

There’s also this blue bowl, rudimentary, kind of thick walled blue bowl. And I pick it up and on the underside of it, it’s carved Peter underneath. Teacher Peter had fired it, glazed it and fired it for me and left it on my wheel. And I pick it up and the glaze is cool in my hand and it’s very smooth like glass and it feels perfect in my hands because my hands were the things that made this and the grooves are the grooves of my fingers in the surface of the clay. And this object is now part of the world and I made it. It was the earth and I shaped it and inside the way the glaze melted is the universe.

And I put it to the side and I get another ball of clay and I sit down and I start to center. And I look all around me and I can see all the people working everywhere and and and everyone here is taking these, uh, balls of clay or slabs of clay or or pieces of clay and they’re turning into something and it’s coming from a place inside their soul that is supported and beautiful and joyful.

So, what I realize then is now I can make anything. I can make anything for who I am today. I can make things to honor who I had been. I can make things for what is. And all I have to do is joyfully, mindfully, with intent and with compassion for myself, is to sit still and take a breath and make a move and the shape changes. And I take a breath and I make a move and the shape changes. And I take a breath and I make a move and the shape changes.

Thank you.

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Astrid Sauer @ TEDxLisboa 2025 – What would life be like without art?

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While I enjoy and appreciate all artistic expression — air, music, dance, etc. — I must admit that I tend to do so in the moment, without thinking about its effect on the fabric of society, or in a historical context. It takes a reminder, an outside nudge to make that happen. So it was a delight to have the opportunity to work with Astrid Sauer in preparation for her talk at TEDxLisboa on March 15, 2025.

The topic, What would life be like without art?, reminded me of how vital art is in the present, as well as how it has profoundly shaped cultures around the world for centuries. To illustrate that point Astrid begins her talk by challenging those sitting in the audience to imagine a stark, grey world devoid of art – lacking any paintings, music, dance, theatre, or literature — a world that’s been reduced to pure functionality. For me it exemplified the poignant phrase, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.”

Art is more than just decoration. It is a universal language that speaks directly to our hearts and minds, shaping our emotions, ideas, and interactions.

When she states, “I still remember during the Salzburg Festival, musicians would often stay at our house, playing intimate concerts for family and friends.”, I could only image what that must have been like. That was not the case for me growing up, but from the perspective of personal storytelling, this one sentence tells us where her passion for art came from. Note: every passion has an origin story.

But art also serves as a powerful medium for cultural transformation. Whenever art crosses borders, it reshapes and influences the identities of different cultures. And this phenomenon can be observed in various artistic forms, from architecture to music, from literature to visual arts.

So what did I learn from that experience? Without art, our world would lack colour, depth, and connection. And this is not just true today, but has been throughout the greater part of our history.

If your story is founded on your passion, either personal or professional, pay attention to how Astrid takes the audience on a journey from the origin of her passion to framing the topic in a historical context before bringing the subject into modern times. It’s clear that the world we live in would be a very different place without the influence of art in its many forms.

Art isn’t just a luxury; it is a necessity. It is the foundation of culture, of innovation, and human connection. Each of us has the power to contribute to a world that values creativity.

Most importantly, Astrid turns the spotlight on the audience with a reminder that everyone has the ability and opportunity to engage in art. While I wasn’t blessed with much artistic DNA, I support the arts frequently, as I appreciate humanity’s magical creative spark. How are you engaged with some facet of artistic expression? And if your personal passion is something others could benefit from hearing about, why aren’t you telling your story?

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Transcript

Imagine a world without art. No paintings, no music, no literature, no dance, no theatre. Just a vast grey landscape of pure functionality. A world of spreadsheets, reports, and concrete walls. Yet we often overlook how deeply art is woven into the fabric of our daily lives.

Today, let’s explore what life would be like without art and why we can’t afford to live in that world. Art is more than just decoration. It is a universal language that speaks directly to our hearts and minds, shaping our emotions, ideas, and interactions.

From the architecture of our cities to the music that lifts our spirits, art surrounds us, even if we don’t consciously notice it. But let me tell you how my journey with art began, and why I’m still so passionate about it today.

Growing up, I was fortunate to be immersed in a world rich with art and culture. My parents would take me to concerts and opera performances from a very young age. I still remember during the Salzburg Festival, musicians would often stay at our house, playing intimate concerts for family and friends.

We would sing together during the Christmas season. I learned my first instrument, the flute, at the age of five, then moving on to the violin, later the piano, which I still play today. My mother would take me to vernissages and introduce me to local artists, sparking my interest in art collection at the age of 16.

But I was also influenced by my father, a practical engineer and successful business owner. So I decided to study business, embarking on a career as a financial and strategy consultant.

After a couple of years, however, I started to feel a void. Something was missing. So, on a therapeutic trip to the Golden Triangle, deep in the jungle of Vietnam, I sketched a business plan on a napkin. A plan that would lead to a new company that would combine my consulting experience with the cultural sector. And this allowed me to reconnect with my passion for the arts. All of a sudden, my world felt whole again.

So what did I learn from that experience? Without art, our world would lack colour, depth, and connection. And this is not just true today, but has been throughout the greater part of our history.

Let’s travel back to 15th-century Florence. The Medici family, bankers by trade, didn’t just fund artists like Michelangelo, Botticelli, or Leonardo da Vinci. They cultivated a culture of creativity. They financed the construction of the St. Peter’s Basilica, which is a universal symbol of the Catholic Church.

They commissioned the construction of the Florence Cathedral, a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture. They even funded the invention of the piano. They brought together artists, scientists, and philosophers, creating an environment where innovation thrived.

So imagine if they would have said, “Art isn’t our responsibility. Art is not important to society.” Would the Renaissance have happened in the same way? Would we still have the masterpieces that inspire us today?

And although the Renaissance was an evolution of the cultural movement of Humanism that was already active in the mid-14th century before the rise of the Medici, history changed because of that spark, because they cared.

The Renaissance then traveled through trade, history, and humanist scholars to other regions, leading to significant cultural transformations across Europe. Artists like Jan van Eyck in Holland or Albrecht Dürer in Germany started to incorporate Renaissance techniques such as realism and perspective into their paintings.

Just look at the magnificent Arnolfini Portrait of van Eyck, one of the most complex and original masterpieces of Western art, with its geometric orthogonal perspective and the expansion of space through the use of a mirror.

But the spread of Humanism also led to other wealthy families and royal families getting inspired by the Medici family. So they wanted to create a legacy of their own. And one such example was King Francis I of France. He invited artists from all over the world, including Italy like Leonardo da Vinci, to his court, fostering a unique French Renaissance. He’s responsible for the creation of notable castles such as Chambord or Fontainebleau.

But the humanist scholars like Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More in England also promoted the establishment of universities across Europe. They emphasized the importance of education as a means for personal development and civil responsibility. Art doesn’t just entertain us; it propels humanity forward.

Think about the last time a song lifted your mood or a painting calmed your mind. Studies have shown that engaging with arts reduces stress, anxiety, and depression. More specifically, a 2019 World Health Organization report found that artistic engagement significantly improves mental health. And here’s a fun fact: even mice benefit from art. Scientists discovered that playing Mozart for lab mice helped them learn faster. And if it works for mice, imagine what it can do for us!

Let’s crunch some numbers. People participating in a cultural activity are 38% more likely to report good health. And this number increases to 62% if it’s dancing. So sign up for that dance class you always wanted to! People who read for pleasure are 33% more likely to report good health.

High school students who engage in cultural activities at school are twice as likely to volunteer and 20% more likely to vote as young adults. So art is essential for learning. Students who engage in artistic activities during high school are better in reading and mathematics.

A US study of 25,000 students found that taking part in arts and cultural activities increases student attainment, they have better SAT scores, better thinking skills, and better cognitive abilities. They become more empathetic, more socially aware, and better prepared to navigate a complex world.

Beyond education, art is an economic powerhouse. Just look at this photo of the Louvre with the crowds flocking in. On average, 28,000 people visit the Louvre Museum each day. Did you know that in the European Union alone, as of 2019, the cultural and creative industries employed more than 7.6 million people and contributed 643 billion euros to the economy? This represents 4.4% of European Union’s GDP. This is more than the agricultural sector, more than the telecommunication sector. So art isn’t just a luxury; it is a livelihood. It plays a significant part of our country’s economies.

But art also preserves our history and identity. Cultural landmarks from the Great Wall of China to the Mona Lisa connect us to our past and inspire future generations. And speaking of the Mona Lisa… there she is. Did you know when it got stolen in 1911, its disappearance caused global panic? Newspapers all over the world printed headlines about the missing art piece. So art isn’t just seen, it’s felt.

But art also serves as a powerful medium for cultural transformation. Whenever art crosses borders, it reshapes and influences the identities of different cultures. And this phenomenon can be observed in various artistic forms, from architecture to music, from literature to visual arts. Let’s take the National Tile Museum in Lisbon as an example, showcasing how the history and the craft of the tile were influenced by different cultures over centuries.

From its origins that can be traced back to the Islamic period in the Iberian Peninsula, with its geometric patterns and vibrant colors, to the Renaissance artists that would incorporate themes of mythology and religion, to the depiction of historical moments and everyday life during the Baroque period, or the influences of the Portuguese colonial times from Africa to South America or Asia. And finally, contemporary artists who would reinterpret the traditional tile form, experimenting with new techniques and themes. This evolution shows the dynamic nature of art as it crosses borders and fosters cultural exchange.

But let’s travel back to our grey, artless world. Without art, our cities would lack character. Our workplaces would feel lifeless, and our homes would be mere shelters instead of places of inspiration. Companies would struggle to connect with their employees. Communities would lose their sense of belonging.

And here’s the real question: If we neglect art today, what future renaissance are we preventing?

Art isn’t just a luxury; it is a necessity. It is the foundation of culture, of innovation, and human connection. Each of us has the power to contribute to a world that values creativity. Whether we support the arts, we engage with them, or simply take a moment to appreciate them. We all contribute to a richer, more vibrant world.

So the next time you listen to a song, you read a book, you watch a play, remember: Art is what makes us human. And without it, we would lose more than beauty. We would lose ourselves.

Thank you.

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