Robots with a Heart

Heather Knight is a robot designer, currently at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who uses theatre to improve robots. She tells us why comedy may turn out one of the best ways to teach them about human thought and behaviour and performs a short extract from her comedy routine with a robot named Ginger.

Photo: Amy Sussman, AP

Andrea Thomaz is Associate Professor of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she directs the Socially Intelligent Machines lab where she has worked on well-known social robots such as Simon and Curi (pictured). One of her goals is finding out how robots can most efficiently use humans to learn and ask good questions.

Photo by Raftermen Photography, courtesy of Georgia Tech

Fernando Orellana is Associate Professor of Digital Art at Union College in Schenectady, NY, who has made a number of art-works that are based on robotics or automation. Sleep Waking features a robot that can physically re-enact our dreams.  His Carry On installation consists of suitcases with robotic arms fitted with micro-cameras and LCD screens, which busy themselves with the task of surveying their surroundings.

Photo: Amy Sussman, AP

Kate Darling is a Research Specialist at the MIT Media Lab and Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society. She says that as social robot design improves, we may need to think about the effects of treating robots various ways. If people are overly empathetic towards specific robotic objects, might we need a legal framework that discourages violent or abusive behaviour towards these robots?

Photo: Amy Sussman, AP