David Hanson

David Hanson develops robots that are widely regarded as the world’s most human-like in appearance, in a lifelong quest to create true living, caring machines. To accomplish these goals, Hanson integrates figurative arts with cognitive science and robotics engineering, inventions novel skin materials, facial expression mechanisms, and collaborative developments in AI, within humanoid artworks like Sophia the robot, which can engage people in naturalistic face-to-face conversations and currently serve in AI research, education, therapy, and other uses.

Hanson worked as a Walt Disney Imagineer, both a sculptor and a technical consultant in robotics, and later founded Hanson Robotics. As a researcher, Hanson published dozens of papers in materials science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and robotics journals — including SPIE, IEEE, the International Journal of Cognitive Science, IROS, AAAI, AI magazine and more. He wrote two books including “Humanizing Robots” and received several patents. Hanson was featured in the New York Times, Popular Science, Scientific American, WIRED, BBC and CNN. He also received earned awards from NASA, NSF, Tech Titans’ Innovator of the Year, RISD, Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, and the co-received the 2005 AAAI first place prize for open interaction of an AI system. Hanson holds a Ph.D. in Interactive Arts and Technology from the University of Texas at Dallas, and a BFA in film Animation video from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Related sessions

12 January 2024

(Replay)Using humanistic AI and robotics to address the UN SDGs and improve AGI-Human value alignment

11:00 - 11:30 CET Geneva | 05:00-05:30 EST, New York | 18:00-18:30 CST, Beijing

David Hanson (Hanson Robotics), Sophia (Hanson Robotics), Frits Bussemaker (I4ADA)

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AI for Good Global Summit

4 August 2023

AI for Good Global Summit

(Replay) The fusion of AI creativity and musical mastery

16:00 - 16:30 CEST Geneva | 10:00-10:30 EDT, New York | 22:00-22:30 CST, Beijing

David Hanson (Hanson Robotics), Desdemona (SingularityNET), Dianne Krouse (Jam Galaxy)...

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AI for Good Global Summit

6 - 7 July 2023

AI for Good Global Summit

AI for Good Global Summit 2023 Programme

09:00 - 17:30 CEST Geneva | 03:00-11:30 EDT, New York | 15:00-23:30 CST, Beijing

Doreen Bogdan-Martin (ITU), Harry Yeff ( REEPS100 ) (R100 Studios), LJ Rich (BBC News)...

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Robotics for Good

10 November 2022

Robotics for Good

Meet the Robotics for Good start-ups advancing sustainable development (1st session)

16:00 - 17:30 CET, Geneva | 10:00-11:30 EST, New York | 22:00-23:30 CST, Beijing

Vincent Vanhoucke (Google DeepMind), David Hanson (Hanson Robotics), Kate Darling (MIT)...

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8 June 2017

Privacy, Security, Ethics and Societal Challenges

09:00 - 10:00 CET, Geneva

David Hanson (Hanson Robotics), Lynne E. Parker (UTK), Mady Delvaux-Stehres (European Parliament)...

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12 October 2021

Towards socially intelligent robots

15:30 - 17:00 CEST, Geneva | 21:30 - 23:00 HKT, Hong Kong | 9:30 - 11:00 EDT, Boston

Ben Goertzel (SingularityNET), Cynthia Breazeal (MIT), David Hanson (Hanson Robotics)...

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David Hanson

David Hanson

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