I watched a very engaging TED talk today. The content is about robots with emotions but what really pulled me in is that the guy who presented it, Guy Hoffman, left a great job and moved to NYC to live in a tenement building that was literally, falling apart. His ideas about emotionally engaging robots manifested when he watched a Pixar short so he wanted to learn how they made a desk lamp emotionally engaging. He could do because he’s very artistic.

Then he took what he learned and applied it to robotics but not before he started a PhD program. During that program he decided to take an acting class. And, as it turns out, he is a musician, as well.

So here we have this guy who is fully committed to exploring his interests, artistic, musical, has a mind for computer science and Artificial Intelligence and is articulate. Clearly, when God was passing out talent this guy cleaned out the candy bowl which turns out to be good for the rest of us because he is doing important and engaging work.

Enjoy!

http://embed.ted.com/talks/guy_hoffman_robots_with_soul.html