At Kitty Hawk, airplanes first achieved stable flight. Similarly, Hanson Robotics is ground zero for the feverish invention of revolutionary humanoid robots.

Because of Hanson, true wonders have been born. He’s created more than 50 original robots designed to spark the imagination and push the frontiers of realism.

Hanson, founder of Hong-Kong based Hanson Robotics, conceived of a cartoonish, two-foot robot that can relate to children and facilitate autism therapy. He designed a talking Einstein head that will tutor you in math and beat you at brain games. And he’s the creator of Sophia, the glamorous android with iridescent eyes who can laugh at your jokes and grimace when you suffer.

His robots span the disciplines of fine art, consumer products, research, healthcare, and more. They roam the halls of Cambridge University, the Centers for Disease Control, and countless museums.

But Hanson may be best known for his ethos. He’s strived since his youth to create androids that can form relationships with humans. He believes that the destiny of humans and androids can intertwine for the betterment of both.

This Geppetto-like quest is appropriate for an inventor who once worked as a Walt Disney Imagineer. Using this foundation, Hanson has gone on to create some of the most remarkably expressive robots ever built.

As a testament to what an android can be, Hanson hired a diverse group of scientists, engineers, and writers to develop Sophia’s AI into a unique character; representing minds from all over the world.

The result is an android who can walk, process human speech, and display a wide range of human emotions. Her words and actions are intensely studied to examine how humans and robots relate.

People often fear a robot that’s too realistic, Hanson says. But they are no more fearsome than any other work of science or art, he believes.

Sophia’s neural net is upgradable so she can evolve. Hanson, who has a Ph.D in interactive arts and technology and has published books on robotics and AI, believes her future is unlimited. She and other androids “will someday, or maybe, wake up. They may be as creative, smart, and capable as human beings. (They may be) fully conscious, and self-discerning with free will,” he said.

This vision is miles apart from the usual dystopian nightmare. Instead of devolving into a superintelligence bent on destroying mankind, his robots are “friendly genius machines,” he insists.

That doesn’t mean Hanson isn’t aware of the dark potential of AI. He admits that “Machines are becoming devastatingly capable of things like killing. Those machines have no place for empathy.”

Hanson’s “character robots” may not feel emotion as humans do, but they are designed to display emotional intelligence. In the end, empathy is the fertile ground where the seeds of companionship between humans and androids will grow, he believes.

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