a version of this the original post appeared in TechCrunch’s weekly Robotics newsletter, Solenoid. Updated to include details about a new scholarship fund being raised in his honor.

I didn’t know Joanne Pransky personally, so when news of her death broke late last month, I reached out to my LinkedIn followers and asked if any of them knew. “Yes,” replied one, “didn’t they all?” Over decades of work, Pransky has left a lasting impact on the industry, bringing a unique human element to conversations about robotics and automation.

“Joanne was the epitome of ‘Think Different,’” iRobot co-founder and Tertill CEO Helen Greiner told me by email. “She was a pioneer in calling attention to what robots would mean for society and what human society would mean for robots.”

Pransky proudly adopted the title of “the world’s first real robotic psychiatrist”, and dedicated herself to acting as a conduit between humans and robots. “My ultimate goal is to help people understand their emotional, social, and psychological responses to robotic technologies,” she wrote in her official biography, “which will surely proliferate in the coming years, impacting all aspects of their lives. lives”.

Sometimes the job meant working with developers to find ways to adapt systems to human society. Other times it meant convincing humans that robots are not the threat that decades of science fiction have made them out to be. Those conversations landed her on stages like TEDx, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and a three-year job as a judge on Comedy Central’s “BattleBots” competition.

Science fiction played its own key role in its mission statement. Pransky enthusiastically recounted the story of her meeting with Isaac Asimov, who found her updating the legendary writer on real-world advances in the field of robotics. During the meeting, Asimov called her “the real-life Susan Calvin,” a reference to the robopsychologist character in the 1950 short fiction collection “I, Robot,” which served as the inspiration for Will Smith’s film of the same name.

In an email, Texas A&M Department of Computer Science and Engineering professor Robin Murphy tells TechCrunch that even though Pransky often and proudly tells the story, the comparison isn’t entirely accurate. .

“Joanne was very proud that Isaac Asimov called her the real Susan Calvin, which was strange because Susan Calvin was nasty, lonely, never smiled, had no husband or family, the complete opposite of Joanne,” Murphy writes. “But it makes sense: if there was a woman who represented what Asimov wanted robotics to be, instead of a standard character, she would be Joanne.”

Murphy was the first to announce the news of Pransky’s passing. In its tribute on Robohubnotes, “Joanne was one of the first to really push what is now called human-centered robotics: that there is always a human involved in any robot system.”

You can also learn more about Pransky in his own words at his YouTube channel, Robot MD. This excerpt from his TEDx talk, robot on the couchseems to best sum up their mission statement.

Robots can help us and improve our lives in many ways, but they won’t experience the human condition. You won’t get butterflies from doing a TEDx talk. They will not feel euphoric from laughing so uncontrollably that they cry. They will not empathize with the human anguish that comes from losing a loved one. Robots are not the same as us and we should not use the same terminology to characterize their responses. Attributing an expression like artificial empathy to a machine can only lead to confusion and the assumption that machines get emotional like we do, especially when our vision of what is artificial and what is real becomes blurred. Humans learn empathy from other humans face to face.

This week, the nonprofit group Women in Robotics quietly launched a grant in Pransky’s name. The fund, which is currently soliciting donations through bold.orgfocuses on encouraging women and non-binary students to pursue careers in robotics.

“We have a global online community and local events in many cities that are hubs for robotics. Robotics is a rapidly growing field and we need more women and underrepresented people in the robotics community. “Our first scholarship, the Joanne Pransky Celebration of Women in Robotics, is for college students and incoming freshmen, encouraging them to explore robotics courses.”