Artificial intelligence, or AI, has been part of the world as long as fiction has. In the 1950s, when computers first entered our technology, the genre of AI exploded into the fiction representation we have today. However, we have very real AI in our homes as well, such as Amazon's Alexa or other corporate chatbots. They don't entirely resemble fictional AI, but are they similar enough? The further we reach in technology, the more we blend the boundaries between science and science fiction.

Stanford's robot will (hopefully) eventually learn more subtle differences in social cues, like the difference between two people standing next to each other, and two people standing together in conversation. Which means that as this technology evolves, robots will be better at not interrupting private conversations, or walking between couples on the sidewalk, or crossing in front of people whose noses are buried in their phones.