Talking Robots: Cynthia Breazeal

Posted 11 Apr 2008 at 13:07 UTC by mwaibel

As robots become more autonomous and intelligent they slowly move out of their protected environments in research labs and assembly lines. First signs include the tragic death of a municipal worker killed by an industrial robotic lawnmower as well as the tale of Zoltan and his robot girlfriend. Cynthia Breazeal, founder and director of the Personal Robots Group at MIT's Media Lab, has developed a broad range of robots that interact with humans, including the recently released (and somewhat creepy) humanoid MDS, the well-known humanoid Kismet, the robot teddy Huggable™, the anthropomorphic animal robot Leonardo as well as the office lamp AUR. As Breazeal points out, "robots push our social buttons more than any other technology today". Nearly anything can have a social component and, as Breazeal's work shows, the possibilities for interaction are nearly endless. To see videos of her robots and find out where human-robot interaction is headed check out the podcast.