Creating - WSJ.com: When they appear on stage, Heather Knight, a robotics graduate student, and Data, her stand-up-comedy-performing robot, seem like a futuristic Odd Couple. Ms. Knight is tall, blond and human while Data—sheathed in a white plastic shell and about a third her size—resembles a RoboCop action figure. Data plays the feisty star; Ms. Knight takes on the role of the "straight man." At a performance last year, Data, perched on a stool, waved to the crowd. "I would say it's a pleasure to be here, but I am a robot and don't know emotion," he said in a fittingly electronic voice. Then he turned his head slowly toward Ms. Knight and pointed at her with his left arm. "Heather, how about you get working on that emotion program?" he asked. "I am, Data!" she responded, in a mock-defensive tone.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Heather Knight and Data: A Researcher and a Robot Walk Into a Bar...
Creating - WSJ.com: When they appear on stage, Heather Knight, a robotics graduate student, and Data, her stand-up-comedy-performing robot, seem like a futuristic Odd Couple. Ms. Knight is tall, blond and human while Data—sheathed in a white plastic shell and about a third her size—resembles a RoboCop action figure. Data plays the feisty star; Ms. Knight takes on the role of the "straight man." At a performance last year, Data, perched on a stool, waved to the crowd. "I would say it's a pleasure to be here, but I am a robot and don't know emotion," he said in a fittingly electronic voice. Then he turned his head slowly toward Ms. Knight and pointed at her with his left arm. "Heather, how about you get working on that emotion program?" he asked. "I am, Data!" she responded, in a mock-defensive tone.
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I have a really hard time understanding what a robot really is. Obviously, I can get it to some degree, but when I start to think really deeply about the concept of a robot, I get a little lost.
I think I get a little weirded out by robots because they have the capacity to be so much better than a human. In this case, the robot is programmed to be funny. The jokes are obviously written by humans (good one, Chemers) but the robot is programmed to respond to its surroundings to maximize laughter. Humans have that same "programming" but we also have other things (like emotions) that stop us from simply switching up our material when the crowd isn't feeling it and instead make us panic or loose focus.
In any case, Heather Knight is clearly brilliant (I mean, have you seen that Okay Go video?) and if nothing else, building a funny robot is a really interesting way to evaluate comedy.
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