Cynthia Breazeal

Cynthia Lynn Breazeal (born November 15, 1967 in Albuquerque, New Mexico)[1] is a Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is director of the Personal Robots group at the MIT Media Lab,[2] and is associate director of the Media Lab.[3] She also served as associate director of strategic initiatives for The Bridge, part of the MIT Quest for Intelligence, and as co-director of the Center for Future Storytelling at the Media Lab.[4] She is best known for her work in robotics, where she is recognized as a pioneer of social robotics and human–robot interaction.[5]

Cynthia Breazeal
Breazeal in 2017
Born (1967-11-15) November 15, 1967
Albuquerque, New Mexico, US
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of California, Santa Barbara (B.S., EECS, 1989)
MIT (S.M., 1993; Sc.D., 2000)
OccupationComputer scientist, professor
Known forRobotics, Jibo, and K-12 AI Literacy

Biography

Cynthia Breazeal received her B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1989,[6] her M.S. in 1993, and her Sc.D. in 2000 in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, both from MIT.

She developed the robot Kismet as a doctoral thesis under Rodney Brooks, looking into expressive social exchange between humans and humanoid robots.[7] Kismet and some of the other robots Breazeal co-developed while a graduate student at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab can now be seen at the MIT Museum. Notable examples include the upper torso humanoid robot Cog and the insect-like robot Hannibal.[8]

Research

Leonardo was one of her earliest robots, co-developed with Stan Winston Studio and a successor to Kismet (recognized in 2006 by Wired magazine as one of the "50 Best Robots Ever").[9] Leonardo was also used to investigate social cognition and Theory of Mind abilities on robots with application to human-robot collaboration, in addition to developing social learning abilities for robots such as imitation, tutelage, and social referencing. Nexi,[10] is another of Breazeal's robots in this tradition, and was named by Time magazine as one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2008.[11] Nexi is a MDS robot (Mobile, Dexterous, Social) that combines rich social communication abilities with mobile dexterity to investigate more complex forms of human-robot teaming.

Other social robots developed in Breazeal's Personal Robots group include Autom,[12] a robot diet and exercise coach (the PhD thesis of Cory Kidd).[13] It was found to be more effective than a computer counterpart in sustaining engagement and building trust and a working alliance with users. Autom was commercialized [14] and was the predecessor of Mabu (Catalia Health). Breazeal's group has also explored expressive remote presence robots such as MeBot.[15] The physical social embodiment of the MeBot was found to elicit greater psychological involvement, engagement, and desire to cooperate over purely screen-based video conferencing or a mobile screen. The Huggable was designed as a pediatric companion to help support the emotional needs of hospitalized children and to help support and augment child life specialists.[16]

Breazeal's Personal Robots group has also done a number of design projects. Cyberflora was exhibited at the 2003 National Design Triennial[17] at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

She served as a consultant on the 2001 Spielberg-Kubric movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence.[18] She also has a prominent role as a virtual participant in a popular exhibit on robots with the traveling exhibit, Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination, interacting with a real C-3PO (voiced by Anthony Daniels) as she spoke to the audience through a pre-recorded message displayed on a large plasma flat-screen display.

In 2003, she was named by the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[19]

In 2020, she was elected a AAAI Fellow by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intellligence.[20]

In March 2020, during the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, Breazeal and her team launched a site with over 60 activities, so students can get access to STEM activities from the lockdown to help teachers and parents continue education from home.[21]

Jibo
A white variant. Jibo also came in black.

On July 16, 2014, Breazeal launched an Indiegogo campaign to crowdfund the development of Jibo, a personal assistant robot.[22] Jibo [23] reached its initial fundraising goal and was due to launch in 2015, then later pushed to 2016,[24] before finally being released in November 2017.[25] The software development kit expected for developers was never released.[26] On December 15, 2017 the company announced layoffs[27] and in March 2019 it was reported that Jibo robots had announced that the servers would stop working soon, and said "Maybe someday when robots are way more advanced than today, and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours that I said hello," concluding with Jibo's famous "last dance".[28] Breazeal has made no public comments in regard to the closing of Jibo.[29] In March 2020, the assets for Jibo Inc. were acquired by NTT Corporation. NTT Disruption intends to bring Jibo to the healthcare and education markets.[30]

Awards and recognition

In 2008 she received the Gilbreth Lectures Award by the National Academy of Engineering. Her Nexi robot was named one of TIME magazine's Best Inventions of 2008,.[31]

In 2014 she was recognized as an entrepreneur as Fortune Magazine's Most Promising Women Entrepreneurs, and she was also a recipient of the L’Oreal USA Women in Digital NEXT Generation Award. The same year, she received the 2014 George R. Stibitz Computer & Communications Pioneer Award for seminal contributions to the development of Social Robotics and Human Robot Interaction.[32]

In 2015 Breazeal was named by Entrepreneur magazine as a Women to Watch.[33]

Jibo was featured on the cover of TIME magazine's 25 Best Inventions of 2017.[34]

Selected works

Books
  • Breazeal, Cynthia (2002). Designing Sociable Robots. The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-02510-8.
  • Turtle, Cynthia; Bar-Cohen, Yoseph (2003). Biologically Inspired Intelligent Robots. Bellingham, Washington: SPIE (The International Society for Optical Engineering). ISBN 0-8194-4872-9.
  • Breazeal contributed one chapter to Architects of Intelligence: The Truth About AI from the People Building it, Packt Publishing, 2018, ISBN 978-1-78-913151-2, by the American futurist Martin Ford.[35]

References
  1. "Cynthia Breazeal – Roboticist". National Academy of Sciences. Women's Adventures in Science. Archived from the original on July 6, 2010. Retrieved April 17, 2010.
  2. "MIT Media Lab".
  3. "Cynthia Breazeal named Media Lab associate director". MIT News. Retrieved 2020-06-19.
  4. "Center for Future Storytelling | Research". cfs.media.mit.edu. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  5. "Cynthia Breazeal".
  6. "Berazeal, Cynthia". Current Biography Yearbook 2011. Ipswich, MA: H.W. Wilson. 2011. pp. 89–92. ISBN 9780824211219.
  7. Cohen, Adam (2000-12-03). "Cynthia Breazeal". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
  8. "Hannibal & Attila". MIT Media Lab. Retrieved March 11, 2019.
  9. "The 50 Best Robots Ever". WIRED. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
  10. "Meet Nexi, the Media Lab's latest robot and Internet star". MIT News. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
  11. "Best Inventions of 2008 - TIME". TIME.com. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
  12. "Autom - Papers". Personal Robots Group. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
  13. Cory Kidd, Designing for Long-Term Human-Robot Interaction and Application to Weight Loss. January 2008. Ph.D. Media Arts and Sciences, MIT. Archived 2016-12-06 at the Wayback Machine
  14. "Intuitive Automata".
  15. Papacharissi, Zizi (2018-07-11). A Networked Self and Human Augmentics, Artificial Intelligence, Sentience. Routledge. ISBN 9781351783996.
  16. "'Huggable,' a social robot for kids, eases hospital stress". Retrieved 2019-06-23.
  17. Lupton, Eileen; Cooper-Hewitt Museum (2003). Inside design now : National Design Triennial. New York, N.Y.: Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1568983948.
  18. "Contrary to popular opinion, Spielberg found the perfect ending for A.I." A.V. Club.
  19. "2003 Young Innovators Under 35". Technology Review. 2003. Retrieved August 16, 2011.
  20. "Elected AAAI Fellows". AAAI. 2020. Retrieved December 23, 2019.
  21. "NEW WEBSITE OFFERS MIT RESOURCES FOR K-12 STUDENTS TO LEARN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE". Retrieved 2020-05-02.
  22. "JIBO, World's First Family Robot. 4,800".
  23. "2014 Boston Researcher Cynthia Breazeal is ready to bring robotics into the home". Recode.
  24. "Jibo delayed to 2017 as social robot hits more hurdles". Slash Gear. Retrieved 26 February 2017.
  25. "New Jibo ship date drops social robot into Alexa's new world". SlashGear. 2017-10-26. Retrieved 2018-03-04.
  26. "r/Jibo - JIBO SDK News". reddit. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  27. "Layoffs Hit Jibo More Than a Month After Social Robot's Launch". BostInno. Retrieved 18 December 2017.
  28. "Jibo robot signals its own demise with a dance". BBC News. 2019-05-03.
  29. Camp, Jeffrey Van (2019-03-08). "My Jibo Is Dying and It's Breaking My Heart". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2019-03-09.
  30. "jibo the social robot returns, with its brand new website". NTT Disrupption. 2020-07-23. Retrieved 2020-07-23.
  31. "Best Inventions of 2008 - TIME". TIME.com. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
  32. "Cynthia Breazeal Biography".
  33. Staff, Entrepreneur (2015-01-17). "6 Innovative Women to Watch in 2015". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
  34. "The 25 Best Inventions of 2017 - TIME". TIME.com. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
  35. Falcon, William (November 30, 2018). "This Is The Future Of AI According To 23 World-Leading AI Experts". Forbes. Retrieved March 20, 2019.

Further reading
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