Boxie, a robot created at MIT Media Lab, relies on adorableness rather than artificial intelligence to meet its goals.
Cuteness is one of the most powerful forces on earth. It discourages exhausted new parents from murdering their screaming infants, it makes bloggers into millionaires, and it may be more effective than fancy artificial intelligence when it comes to getting robots to interact well with humans. That's the idea behind Boxie, a robot created by Alexander Reben at MIT Media Lab. Reben wanted to design a robot that could approach people and get them to answer interview questions on camera. (As someone who crosses the street to avoid human camera crews hunting for "man on the street" material, I can assure you this is no small feat.) But he also needed the robot to be inexpensive, rugged, and lightweight. Amazingly, simply making the robot adorable solved all these problems at once.
