The social robot developed at MIT by Cynthia Breazeal was named Kismet.
Kismet was created in the late 1990s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of Cynthia Breazeal’s research into human-robot interaction. Its expressive face used cameras, microphones, motors, and software to respond to visual and vocal cues from people.
Rather than walking or performing industrial work, Kismet focused on communication. Its ears, eyes, mouth, and eyebrows could produce simplified emotional expressions, helping researchers study how people interpret social signals from machines.
Kismet is sometimes confused with Cog, another MIT humanoid robot, or Jibo, a later consumer-oriented social robot. Kismet’s main contribution was experimental research into social interaction and emotional expression, not household automation or autonomous navigation.