On Friday, May 3, the Qualcomm Institute’s IDEAS series presents “Beyond the Black Box: A Girl and Her Dog,” a performative exploration within a series of human robot interactions.

Combining the talents of playwright Hortense Gerardo, director of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering’s Anthropology, Performance, and Technology (APT) Program, UC San Diego Teaching Professor Amy Eguchi and University of Nebraska-Lincoln Assistant Professor of Emerging Media Arts Robert Twomey, “Beyond the Black Box” explores questions of whether robots can generate a sense of fun defined as “pleasure with surprises.” The work is loosely informed by the story of Eurydice, “The Wizard of Oz,” and “Toy Story,” and will feature six interactive robots and a selection of robots from past research projects conducted at UC San Diego.

“Beyond the Black Box: A Girl and Her Dog” is part of the series “Dances with Robots” and will be informed by data from creative AI research experiments performed by the APT Program. The work is part of On Display Global by Heidi Latsky, commemorating the International Day of Persons With Disabilities.