Cynthia Breazeal

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Despite all the help from Breazeal, Kismet still has a lot to learn. Breazeal is working on helping the computer with some simple skills that human babies are hardwired for. She wants Kismet to be able to use the information it learns. One day, she hopes, when Kismet is told the name of a toy, it will later be able to ask for it by name. "Through more interactions, Kismet could learn, 'When I'm in this state, I can take this action that leads to a person's taking this behavior and getting my needs satiated,'" Breazeal says. She also wants Kismet to be able to remember the people it meets, so it can distinguish old friends from people it is meeting for the first time.

Who's Teaching Whom?
Kismet's educational journey prompts an obvious question: Why? What is the purpose of building humanoid robots and then programming and training them to act like us? One view of robotics holds that being able to build a machine that acts like a human is itself a worthy goal. "There's certainly a great challenge in creating something as sophisticated as what humans do," says Breazeal. It doesn't necessarily mean engaging in the Frankensteinian mission of trying to create a human being, she says. "Of course, we're never going to do that, but we can look for a commonality," she says. "Even though your dog is not human, it doesn't mean you can't communicate with it in a human-like way."

But Breazeal is at least as interested in using the robot to better understand humans. Thinking about how robots learn turns out to be a good way to think about human pedagogy. A case in point: in helping Kismet learn, researchers have observed that one of the hardest parts of the learning process is figuring out what to pay attention to. And watching Kismet interact with people provides insight into human social dynamics. At some point, Breazeal wants to build a second Kismet to see how the two robots interact. "A lot of times kids compete for attention," she says. "It would be interesting to program the robot to get attention."

As a woman robotmaker, Breazeal is in a distinct minority. A major reason for the disparity, she says, is that girls do not get enough support in pursuing careers in science. "Girls aren't discouraged," she says, "but they aren't encouraged either." And they don't have enough positive role models. When she was growing up, Breazeal says, she did not see many women scientists, and the ones she did encounter were mainly "difficult people" she did not want to emulate. What made the difference for her is that her mother was a scientist and encouraged her to pursue a career in the sciences.

Breazeal thinks more girls would be attracted to the hard sciences if they realized how creative they can be. Contrary to popular conceptions of hard science as dry and rulebound, she sees it as a rich field for self-expression. "Technology is flexible enough that you can make it what you want," she says. And Breazeal is certainly doing just that. By emphasizing the social aspect of robotics, she is taking the field in a bold new direction. "I'm trying to challenge the stereotypes," she says, "putting a human face on them."

It's impossible to spend time with Kismet without seeing that face. It is a long way from being a human. But it has enough human qualities that its interactions are, in some way, clearly social. And it forms bonds with people that may fall short of human bonds but are far different from the ones people form with most inanimate objects. Breazeal freely acknowledges that her little creation tugs at her own heartstrings. "I definitely have an attachment to it," she says, admitting that she missed it while on a recent trip to Australia. And she sees other humans bonding with Kismet and worrying about its well-being. "I've built a lot of complex robots," says Breazeal, "and people have never said, 'Oh, you've built this insect robot. What will happen to it?'"

But they do ask that about Kismet, which raises a painful subject. As Breazeal goes on the job market, she worries about what will become of her long-eyelashed offspring. Though she created Kismet, it is technically M.I.T.'s property. Breazeal is optimistic she will be able to work things out with the university, but she is still anxious. "I really don't know what will happen," she says. "The legal system doesn't have parental rights for robots."