This morning, TIME announced its 2025 selections for the 100 Most Influential People in AI, naming RAISE director and MIT Dean for Digital Learning Cynthia Breazeal to its “Thinkers” list, joining others like Sam Altman, top scientists, government leaders, and fellow MIT faculty Priya Donti and Regina Barzilay…and even Pope Leo:
Breazeal’s goal is to impart an “eyes-wide-open optimism” that balances an appreciation of what AI can do with an understanding of its social impacts and its limits. In her experience, kids often intuitively understand this. “When we’re working with actual kids in these actual contexts, you get some hope,” she says.
Breazeal is acutely aware of how design decisions shape our relationship to technology: nearly 30 years ago, her research on human-machine interaction helped to launch the field of social robotics. Her hope is that equipping the next generation with a deep understanding of how design impacts experience will enable them to build safe, pro-social tech. “We are deeply social, emotional, cognitive, multidimensional creatures,” she says. “The more that we can design technologies that support all of us, the more deeply we can engage, and not surprisingly, the more successful we are.”