About the series
Abstract:
The fields of Social Robotics and Human-Robot Interaction are undergoing rapid growth, motivated by important societal challenges facing the general public such as aging in place, healthcare, education, manufacturing, transportation, and much more. Such applications motivate the development of ever more intelligent and capable autonomous robots and technologies that can work collaboratively with people in human environments. In the consumer marketplace, intelligent conversational technologies are entering the home at a surprising rate as Internet of Things devices are enabled by AI-based SDKs. Affordable social robots are also poised to enter the market as mass consumer products and 3rd party developer platforms. The importance of developing and understanding the beneficial and long-term impact of such technologies on daily life in real-world contexts never been more relevant. This presentation highlights a number of provocative research findings from the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab along these themes. We develop social robots and apply them as a new kind of scientific tool to understand human behavior. We then use these insights to design and develop social robots that engage people over repeated encounters to enhance quality of life outcomes. In this presentation, we highlight relevant work in healthcare and early childhood education.
Research in social robotics builds a critical foundation for real world applications for personal robots. Social robots can be viewed as a new medium for content that is capable of humanized engagement. As such, social robots are a highly differentiated and compelling platform for 3rd party content and is attractive to app developers. The entrepreneurial journey of bringing a social robot consumer product to market in the USA will also be discussed in the context of Jibo, Inc. This also creates a pathway for the science and academic innovation of social robotics to impact the real world, starting in the home.
Bio:
Dr. Cynthia Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she founded and directs the Personal Robots Group at the Media Lab. She is also founder and Chief Scientist of Jibo, Inc. She is a pioneer of social robotics and human robot interaction. Her recent work investigates the impact of social robots on helping people of all ages to achieve personal goals that contribute to quality of life in domains such as education, health, wellbeing, emotive connection and positive states of mind such as curiosity, mindset and creativity. Her work balances technical innovation in AI and robotics with UX design and human psychology to maximize beneficial outcomes for different demographics of users. She has authored the book Designing Sociable Robots, has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles, and she is an award-winning innovator, designer, and entrepreneur – recognized in prestigious venues such as Technology Review’s TR35 Award, TIME magazine’s Best Inventions, the National Design Awards in Communication, and Fortune Magazine’s Most Promising Women Entrepreneurs. She did her graduate work at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, and received her doctorate in 2000 in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
To Join the webinar, please register at: http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/nsf/1704132/
