Abstract: Operads, and the more general multicategories, are combinatorial devices originally used in algebraic topology as a ``bookkeeping'' devices that described the internal operations of iterated loop spaces. The basic idea of an operad, however, is quite flexible and can be adapted to problems in algebra, mathematical physics, and computer science. The goal of this talk is to give a quick introduction to the Grothendieck-Teichm\"{u}ller group, as introduced by Drinfeld and Ihara, describe some of the conjectures relating this group to quantized deformations, and explain how this conjecture is being understood through the machinery of operads (up to homotopy).