By Karen Klinger

MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle smiled as she recalled the conversation she had with a journalist for a leading science magazine who wanted to know why she opposed marriages between people and robots.

"He put me in the same camp as those who opposed marriage between lesbians or gay marriage," Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology, told those gathered at the MIT Museum to hear her and colleague Cynthia Breazeal discuss "sociable robots."

The man accused her of "species chauvinism," she said. "It made me feel sad."

The talk by Turkle and Breazeal, an associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT, was sponsored by the Cambridge Science Festival, a nine-day, citywide celebration of science and technology.

Breazeal is the director of the MIT Media Lab's personal robots group and the creator of "Kismet," a well-known talking robotic head that is the subject of her book, "Developing Sociable Robots." Since Kismet, her team has developed a robotic teddy bear, an animal robot named "Leonardo" and most recently, "Nexi," a robot known as an MDS (for mobile, dexterous, social) that exhibits a wide range of facial expressions. Nexi recently became a "YouTube" star after the MIT group released a video showing its human-like interactive abilities.

Turkle is the author of the landmark books "The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit" and "Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet." She said that after more than a decade of studying social robots, she believes that "Once people see robots as creatures, they feel a desire to connect with them and nurture them."

That seemed to be the case with a weight loss study cited by Breazeal in which participants were asked to keep track of their progress using pen and paper, a desktop computer or a robot. She said the results showed the test subjects not only spent far longer interacting with the robots, but some even named them and dressed them.

When the researchers retrieved the robots at the end of the study some people "waved goodbye" to them, she said. "They did not do this with the computers."

Turkle used an experience with her teenaged daughter to demonstrate the way young people often take for granted the interaction between real life and its synthetic approximation. As they stood on line at the entrance to a museum exhibition on Darwin, her daughter suggested an alternative to the live Galapagos tortoise on display.

"They could have used a robot," her daughter said, sorry that the tortoise had been brought so far just to sit there. When Turkle asked other people waiting on line if they cared whether or not the tortoise was alive, most agreed that a robot would have been just as good. After a 12-year-old said firmly that a live animal wasn't needed for "what turtles do," she said the girl's dismayed father responded, "But the point is that they are real."

When Turkle followed up by asking the other museum visitors whether people should be told if a robot had replaced a live animal, she said several children responded that "aliveness" data need only be shared on a "need to know" basis.

The notion that living things easily can be replaced by robots has its limits, though. Turkle said a wheelchair-bound friend whose caretakers at times were indifferent or even abusive nevertheless told her that if she could point to someone who would rather be cared for by a robot, "I'll show you someone who is looking for a person and can't find one."

Still, it seems that children do not always make such distinctions between humans and machines. Turkle recounted the dismayed reaction of a child who heard that Breazeal, who was moving to a new laboratory at MIT, would have to part ways with Kismet.

"But Cynthia is Kismet's mother!" the child protested.

To see a video of MIT's Nexi MDS robot, go to www.peoplecorporation.org/display_post.php?p=6454