Interesting is not so important. The article says that it's more important to understand the meaning and influence of new things on society.

I'm not sure that the guy who invented something is the one we should ask about how it would affect society. He's probably biased towards his new tech, and doesn't have the historical, political, social and other types of knowledge needed to try to understand the impacts.

And the corporatism is that TED created a false sense of technological optimism within the viewer, a sense that technology could solve all. But at their core, most of our big problems are social and psychological, and many are tied directly to current business structures.