Heather Knight

"He's kind of like the typical actor -- he likes anything that puts him at the center of attention," says Heather Knight, an energetic social roboticist and engineer, describing her robot companion, Data. With her pint-size mechanical protégé, Knight -- who is a pioneer in robotics and sensor-based electronic art -- is also innovating another unlikely field: stand-up comedy. 

Knight and Data's first big break in comedy was a 2010 TED Talk; they've been on the road ever since. Onstage, Data listens to crowd response and tailors his routine to cater to these cues. This leads to interesting results. "He walks in the room and I actually have no idea what he's going to do, but it's constrained by what's in his database," says Knight. The performances are not only amusing ("People find jokes about technology funny coming from a robot"), but in the future they will enable Knight to program intuitive reactions like expression, gesture and personality depending on audience feedback. Eventually Data and other robots will be able to learn on their own, becoming better helpers and more autonomous performers like, as Data suggests, "Justin Bieber, or perhaps Charlie Sheen." 

The fusion of art and technology has always fascinated Knight, who previously worked with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Syyn Labs. She's currently a Ph.D. candidate at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute and founder of New York City's robot theater company Marilyn Monrobot. She also launched New York's first Robot Film Festival last year. This summer's theme is "Are Robots Man's New Best Friend?" 

Knight and Data continue to develop their act -- his finale is a Michael Jackson dance -- so that humans and machines can better understand one another. "It can be as convoluted as any romantic relationship," she says. "Sometimes when it works it's just so wonderful and when it doesn't you can just destroy each other." 

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