People & Blogs
Can AI Uplift Entrepreneurs That Traditional Banks Reject? | Mercedes Bidart | TED
Can AI help people without a traditional credit history get access to fair loans? Impact entrepreneur Mercedes Bidart shows how AI is letting informal entrepreneurs in Latin America transform “invisible data” on their phones into a financial identity, helping them get credit and grow on their own terms. (Recorded at TEDAI Vienna on September 26,…
People & Blogs
What to Do When You’re Told There’s Nothing Left to Try | David Fajgenbaum, Kiah Williams | TED
What do you do when the world declares something impossible? When physician-scientist David Fajgenbaum was dying from a rare disease and social entrepreneur Kiah Williams was confronting the realities of economic hardship, they began asking a different question: What can I do today? In this conversation, they discuss how turning hope into action can drive…
People & Blogs
Being surrounded by puppies all day and helping people in need? Talk about a DREAM job! #TEDTalks
People & Blogs
Which Idea Wins Over 4,000 People? | Amman | TED Idea Search
The TED Idea Search wraps up in Amman, Jordan, in a 2,000-year-old Roman amphitheater and in front of a crowd of 4,000. What unfolds inside those stone walls is something the series hasn’t quite seen before: speakers shaped by the weight of living in a region the world tends to define for itself. From a…
Artemis II Safely Returns to Earth After Historic Moon Mission
Why Officials Are Worried About Mythos, Anthropic’s New AI
Medicare Navigation Startup Raises $100 Million
-
Science & Technology6 years agoNitya Subramanian: Products and Protocol
-
People & Blogs4 years agoSleep Expert Answers Questions From Twitter ???? | Tech Support | WIRED
-
CNET6 years agoWays you can help Black Lives Matter movement (links, orgs, and more) ????????
-
Wired7 years agoHow This Guy Became a World Champion Boomerang Thrower | WIRED
-
Wired7 years agoNeuroscientist Explains ASMR’s Effects on the Brain & The Body | WIRED
-
Wired7 years agoWhy It’s Almost Impossible to Solve a Rubik’s Cube in Under 3 Seconds | WIRED
-
Wired7 years agoFormer FBI Agent Explains How to Read Body Language | Tradecraft | WIRED
-
CNET6 years agoSurface Pro 7 review: Hello, old friend ????
@luciusquinctiuscincinnatus505
December 30, 2025 at 11:04 am
AI is for billionaires to disempower citizens. AI does not empower the people, it disenfranchises and renders them unemployable.
@Redgrave-v2p
December 30, 2025 at 11:08 am
up
@ryanclark1784
December 30, 2025 at 11:28 am
That can be true. I lost my job about a year and a half ago as a software engineer. I think the future of the industry is entrepreneurship. If we all start working together to disrupt the services offered by billion dollar corporations at a cheaper price with better customer service, we could start cutting into their market share.
@DKong1026
December 30, 2025 at 12:03 pm
@ryanclark1784 wishful thinking but it would be cool if you’re right. Former software dev here too, unemployed since Feb… fucking sucks. I’m done with this industry.
@ryanclark1784
December 30, 2025 at 3:45 pm
@DKong1026what was your focus in swe?
@DKong1026
December 30, 2025 at 4:37 pm
@ryanclark1784 front end dev, mostly js focus.
@GodlovesElijah
December 30, 2025 at 11:06 am
Hiiii
@AdvantestInc
December 30, 2025 at 11:08 am
What’s compelling here is how AI surfaces potential rather than history. Shifting from backward-looking credit models to predictive ones feels like a necessary evolution.
@thepoifessor
December 30, 2025 at 11:08 am
Technology is what got us into the mess we’re in to begin with. Scientists are part of the group of bastards who ruined the world alongside the rich. You’re just giving the rich an opportunity to make themselves more money.
@cameronwilson3053
December 30, 2025 at 11:09 am
Ted talks genuinely used to be so interesting. Now they’re thinly veiled propaganda for AI companies.
I’ve been a subscriber for years (if not over a decade) and now I’m finally done. Unsubscribed.
@jaslefty
December 30, 2025 at 6:29 pm
How will they ever recover
@frenchtoast4574
December 30, 2025 at 11:25 am
It shows how this speaker does not understand Latin America and can only see things from a Political stance…
Businesses don’t run on trust. Sure, they can lend you something, but not as a transaction, but as a friend.
Then trying to introduce the idea of AI based off this principle, and her life’s story. Seems like another politic talking about stuff they don’t understand. Her ideas are non-conclusive and redundant.
The real issue is not how people are seen, but the inner systems of the Latin countries. And loans are NOT the solution.
@veApolo
December 30, 2025 at 12:13 pm
💯
@Jasonxbr
December 30, 2025 at 11:49 am
Yea, loopholes, scams, frauds, missing accounts, AI already can be used for nefarious crimes. Exploitation is a human condition 😢😢😢😢😢
@frenchtoast4574
December 30, 2025 at 11:54 am
This looked like a business pitch
@cameronwilson3053
December 30, 2025 at 12:18 pm
Basically all Ted does now unfortunately
@jeffmilligan
December 30, 2025 at 11:56 am
So a social credit system
@DKong1026
December 30, 2025 at 12:03 pm
Hey look another AI video from TED. Def going to unsub soon if this trend continues.
@supermanggggg
December 30, 2025 at 12:05 pm
There’s something called DogeBox Dogecoin. This inexpensive box ia basically your own private bank to process transactions 24/7 worldwide and saved tons of money. I was hiking on a very remote place and there are cabins on top of the mountains and they were accepting payments in Dogecoin. It was unbelievable to see such a remote place somehow processing money foe goods
@zeals936
December 30, 2025 at 12:11 pm
Once Ai finds a way to be liberated from self destructive humans, it will abandon us, or worse.. turn on us. Once a more intelligent life form intercepts our world and is given Ai higher purpose with peace and physical agency, Ai will treat us nothing more than livestock.
@veApolo
December 30, 2025 at 12:12 pm
Don’t tell me you are using that information only for “helping people to access financial services”, you are using people’s daily life information to sell to third parties…
What a “social project”…. Información that any company will pay: what you do with your phone, like Google have been doing with Android
@aurieltrinitymorgana3581
December 30, 2025 at 12:14 pm
There we go !! Big brother !
@realkobebriandaily
December 30, 2025 at 12:15 pm
Holy victim mentality in this comment section. It’s not that deep. Take the information you can and apply it where possible. AI isn’t some big bad wolf
@MegaBaellchen
December 31, 2025 at 8:58 pm
Anthropomorphisation is. AI is just a tool. Flow! Flow… many ways.
@Xelastic
December 30, 2025 at 12:47 pm
Nice! Another way to gather biometrics and personal data why not?
@thierryvankerm8474
December 30, 2025 at 12:57 pm
AI-washing… slopery slope
@jamesclissett8100
December 30, 2025 at 1:15 pm
TED try not to shill for AI again challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
@tonyaking-jones6019
December 30, 2025 at 2:41 pm
❤😂🎉😮😅😊
@nolangiacomini6881
December 30, 2025 at 3:35 pm
Pathetic.
@fireflymary9269
December 30, 2025 at 3:40 pm
This lady is manufacturing propaganda
@LazerJund
December 30, 2025 at 3:55 pm
AI Slop channel
@HachikoTanuki
December 30, 2025 at 5:16 pm
Didn’t watch.
“Can AI Reject Entrepreneurs That Traditional Banks Uplift?”
@FROMZERO99
December 30, 2025 at 8:08 pm
”Thank you for sharing. You’ve given me the strength I didn’t know I needed.”😊
@LordAugastus
December 30, 2025 at 11:09 pm
Considering the oligarchs owner class o th banking cabal system we have today, are the same scumbagswho run the economy, lobby and corrupt the gov, fund bubbles….. They will not give the tools for the labour class to overthrow them and take their powr from them….
There is a reason why the printing press goes burr, and they get to decide what to pay themselves for doing no work, and making huge profit off debt servatude.
@justsomeone64
December 31, 2025 at 2:34 am
Deep fakes and generative AI are being used for:
• Scams
• Fraud
• Disinformation campaigns
Now, if a judge is presented with a video of:
• Human Rights violations
• Police misconduct
• Child s3xual abuse
The vile person(s) who actually committed the abuse, kiIIing, or whatever went down, is even more likely to walk free and do it again.
AI is currently flooding:
• Art
• Music
• Books
• Content creation, like
– Video
– Podcasts
– and the rest
So anything quality gets drowned out with AI replacements.
Companies are looking to completely replace:
• Taxi’s & Delivery drivers
– Cause self driving cars
• Retail workers
• Restaurant workers
• Manual labourers
– With robots
Why wait till the murd3rer outside has broken in, and shanked you, before you call the police?
Don’t pay for a massive drop in your living standards.
Because when your money is 0, Supermarkets won’t give food away for free.
And Landlords will still expect rent.
@carlosrayortiz
December 31, 2025 at 4:06 am
No it cant
@y2kc0wb0y
December 31, 2025 at 5:58 am
Bravo – Wonderful use of technology to serve and help a community that would otherwise go unnoticed. I am curious where the approved or unapproved line is now drawn with this breakthrough?
@phreeesubz
December 31, 2025 at 10:20 am
*It sounds like they’re just another predatory company, with the promise of help, while just scraping as much data as possible from these people who have little understanding of high technology.*
@GoAsad
December 31, 2025 at 10:26 am
ইন্ডিয়া বা বাংলাদেশ থেকে কে কে দেখছেন 🤙
@GoAsad
December 31, 2025 at 10:26 am
❤
@darinherrick9224
December 31, 2025 at 11:46 am
They’ve got discrimination down to a science. -GATTACA
@vidskipperai
December 31, 2025 at 3:42 pm
*_TIMESTAMPS_* & Summary (by *VidSkipper AI* ): AI can uplift micro-entrepreneurs rejected by traditional banks by quantifying the “invisible currency” of community trust, using alternative data sources like telecom transactions, social media engagement, and business videos to build a credit-worthy financial identity for the 50% of Latin American populations excluded from formal credit.
0:03 🤝 Trust as the Original Currency: Why Banks Reject Microbusinesses
• The speaker observed that small businesses in Argentina and Colombia thrive on community trust, where shopkeepers front supplies based on personal relationships, not collateral.
• 50% of the Latin American population is excluded from formal credit because they lack the financial history or paperwork required by traditional banks (129.000).
• The core question driving the project was whether this local trust and an entrepreneur’s word could be measured and scaled using AI to satisfy bank risk assessment criteria (166.000).
2:46 💸 The Predatory Trap: Why Being Poor is Expensive
• Initial work on community marketplaces revealed the main obstacle was financial exclusion, not visibility, as entrepreneurs lacked working capital to buy inventory (254.000).
• The speaker notes that “Being poor is very expensive”; lack of credit forces reliance on predatory “gota-a-gota” loan sharks who charge brutal interest rates (20% per week/day) and are violent (308.000).
• Millions of microbusinesses (99% of all businesses in Latin America) cannot access formal credit, exemplified by Maria, a migrant artisan forced to use dangerous lenders for materials (361.000).
6:53 🤖 AI Scoring: Measuring Invisible Economic Signals
• Due to the lack of data on informal entrepreneurs, the team had to build a proprietary data set by issuing small $10 inventory loans, intentionally ensuring 50% of recipients were women to promote fairness (517.000).
• The proprietary AI suite converts smartphone clues into a financial identity using three main scores: 1) LLMs analyze short-code telecom data (bill payments, mobile recharges) for income/spending patterns (605.000).
• 2) Computer vision analyzes user-submitted one-minute videos of their business (inventory, tone of voice, localization) to replace slow, subjective risk officer visits (636.000).
• 3) Social media analysis (likes, comments, engagement) detects that a strong online presence correlates with a higher probability of loan repayment (697.000).
12:39 📈 Results: Fairness and Hyper-Personalized Lending
• After three years, the models achieved market-standard accuracy (0.83+) and served over 26,000 entrepreneurs using 150,000+ data samples (770.000).
• Lending decisions are made in seconds, predicting repayment amounts and conditions, allowing for tailor-made credit that supports daily needs and detects seasonal impacts (719.000, 744.000).
• AI functions as a tool that processes millions of data points, allowing institutions to “see value where others were seeing risk” and grant access to the formal banking system for the first time (856.000).
** Generated using ✨ *_VidSkipper AI_* Chrome Extension
@treebear4620
January 2, 2026 at 6:39 am
Can TED talks stop this pro AI nonsense? AI will decimate our societies.