To make robots more human-like, we need to teach them how to be mind readers

Corporate giants like Google, Facebook, and IBM are collectively investing billions of dollars in artificial intelligence (AI), bringing together some of the world's brightest minds who claim that new techniques can create machines that think independently and creatively. So with all this effort, money, and hype, where are the smart robots in our society? Where are the AI assistants, co-workers, and companions? Where are all the cool droids and humanoids that science fiction promised us? In order to build AIs with human-like intelligence--AIs who can interact socially, who are able to work with us to achieve goals, and who are behaviorally and intellectually similar to beloved characters from Star Trek and Star Wars--we must first create one fundamental feature almost entirely missing from their current design.