“Robots don’t need to have artificial intelligence and a voice like Scarlett Johansson for people to form emotional bonds with them… In fact, it takes surprisingly little, as Alexander Reben discovered while working on his masters thesis at the MIT Media Lab. His robot BlabDroid looks like a cardboard Wall-E and totters around asking people personal questions. Watching recordings of BlabDroid’s interviews, Reben was struck by the way people opened up to the robot in ways they wouldn’t to a human stranger… Though his work has far-reaching implications for the tech industry, Reben initially found that the best place to pursue his inquiry wasn’t a lab or a startup, but an art gallery.” – Josh Dieza