Mike Ligthart was one of the speakers of the third event of TEDxVUAmsterdam, which focussed on the theme ‘Shaping Tomorrow’. His TEDtalk, entitled ‘A Robot With a Story’, introduced the audience to Hero and Memo, two social robots. Hero wants to become champion of the robo-olympics. Memo, on the other hand, has no nose and just wants to know how the forest smells like. Through their stories, Hero is able to distract children with cancer from stressful moments in the hospital and Memo is able to elicit stories, thought forgotten, from people with dementia. These stories were created by a close collaboration between creative writers, the people interacting with the robots, and me, an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher. In this TEDtalk, Mike reflected on this collaboration, and professed his love for the profession of writers and all that it brings. By understanding, no feeling, the human experience writers are pivotal for designing meaningful interactions between people and social robots. Something AI cannot solve on its own.

The TED talk can be viewed here.