An Unique TED Talk

Below is the link to the TED Talk "Are you human" by Ze Frank
http://www.ted.com/talks/ze_frank_are_you_human

This TED Talk is special to me because its title raises an extremely philosophical question, and then answers it with a seemingly joking test. The speech has a very attractive beginning, when Ze Frank declares his speech is going to be a test to see if his audience truly belongs to human beings. He first starts with a series of light-hearted questions containing various human's daily activities, mistakes and thoughts to draw a strong connection to the audience. He then proceeds to more serious, less joyful questions about the time when a person feels unhappy or uncomfortable, which could cause his listeners to be deep in thought.

The talk also applies several apt techniques that make it more compelling. First, the tone of Ze Frank, the speaker, is a bit low and sounds almost like a machine. This voice actually works for this piece of work, because it makes up the scene of a person taking a test on a machine, with the questions being asked by a robot. However, at the same time, Frank distinguishes his delivery from that of a robot by placing emphasis and change of tone on some certain words, as well as repetition, to create proper emphasis and humor throughout the speech. He also makes several hand gestures and eye contacts to further connect to the audience. In addition, he sometimes uses rhetorical devices such as personification to make the speech more interesting.

"Are you human" by Ze Frank is a jovial yet thought-provoking TED Talk that everyone should take a look at.