This event will feature a lively debate on the topic of the “Rights of Robots.” The panel to discuss this critical issue will be composed primarily of artificial beings -- bots, cyborgs, robots and humanoids. Human interlocutors will also join the conversation midway through the panel. The "Rights of Robots" panel will showcase technological innovations in artificial intelligence and expression, but it will also provide an opportunity to historicize development in the field. 

As part of the Dorothy H. Hirshon Director in Residence series, the event will present work from filmmaker and media artist Lynn Hershman Leeson. From Hershman Leeson's work, the artificial intelligent web entity Agent Ruby will represent the results of a decade-long work, "The Agent Ruby Files," which includes an ongoing archive of interactions with online users that continues to be built since 2002. This archive continues to shape Agent Ruby's memory and knowledge.  

Lynn Hershman Leeson has been internationally acclaimed for her art and films. Her artwork is featured in the public collections of the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Tate Modern, The National Gallery of Canada, the Walker Art Center and the Museum of Modern Art. She received the d.velop digital art award (d.daa), in Berlin, for Lifetime Achievement in the field of Media. She has also received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. A major retrospective and catalogue is scheduled in 2014 at the ZKM Museum in Germany and the Museum der Moderne Museum in Salzburg. Five of her feature films – The Electronic Diary, Conceiving Ada, Teknolust, Strange Culture, and !Women Art Revolution – have been showcased at the Sundance Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival and The Berlin International Film Festival, among others. They have also been awarded many honors, including the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Writing and Directing and the Best Film on Art in 2011. All of her feature films are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

She is currently serving as the 2013-2014 Dorothy H. Hirshon "Director in Residence" in the School of Media Studies at The New School.

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