Dr. Kate Darling

Dr. Kate Darling, Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab, and leading the ethics & society research team at the Boston Dynamics AI Institute.

Meet Dr. Kate Darling, a leading expert in robot ethics who proposes treating robots with care and respect, like pets.

According to Darling, "We shouldn't laugh at people who fall in love with a machine. It's going to be all of us."

And she means what she says. Check out the picture of her affectionately holding her Dino robot Pleo. I absolutely loved Darling's book The New Breed, which offers a fresh, nuanced perspective on human-robot relationships, transcending utopian and dystopian clichés.

Armed with a Doctorate of Science from ETH Zürich Switzerland, she currently heads the AI Institute research team at Boston Dynamics, one of the leading firms in robotics. Previously, she was a Fellow at Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard and Yale Information Society Project.

Her work has been earned her accolades including "Biggest names in science" by NBC News and "25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About" by Robohub.

With AI powering the robot revolution, and more robots coming our way at work and at home, Darling's work is more important than ever. How should we treat intelligent machines? Should we treat them with compassion, even love?

Last Updated: May 2024