MIT's Cynthia Breazeal wants her Personal Robotics Group to invent automatons that can interact with people, not just serve them. Below, watch the robot Kismet, which she created as a part of her doctoral thesis, display some human-like contrition after receiving a scolding.

Another Breazeal robot, the cuddly Leonardo, picks up on human emotions and learns from interactions. In this case, he learns to be wary of Cookie Monster.

In December 2010, Breazeal took the stage at TED Women to discuss "The Rise of Personal Robots," including a weight-loss coach named Autom that was developed by one of her grad students at MIT.

Return to Breazeal's profile.

Check out the rest of our technology Top Right:

Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

David Ferrucci, lead researcher for IBM's Watson project.

Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy.

Brian Tucker, president of GeoHazards International.