Ideas change everything

Are we still human if robots help raise our babies?

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Sarah Blaffer Hrdy |

TED2025

• April 2025

AI is transforming the way we work — could it also reshape what makes us human? In this quick and insightful talk, evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy explores how the human brain was shaped by millions of years of shared childcare and mutually supportive communities, asking a provocative question: If robots help raise the next generation, will we lose the empathy that defines us?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

AI is transforming the way we work — could it also reshape what makes us human? In this quick and insightful talk, evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy explores how the human brain was shaped by millions of years of shared childcare and mutually supportive communities, asking a provocative question: If robots help raise the next generation, will we lose the empathy that defines us?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.

Watch Sarah's lecture titled "Born Human: How the utterly dependent survive," delivered at the Center for Academic Research & Training in Anthropogeny's 2014 conference.

About the speaker

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

Evolutionary anthropologist

Learn more

Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy | Princeton University Press (2024)

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy - *Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies*

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.

Watch Sarah's lecture titled "Born Human: How the utterly dependent survive," delivered at the Center for Academic Research & Training in Anthropogeny's 2014 conference.