Innovation happens when you’re willing to take bold, uncomfortable leaps into the unknown.
Two decades ago, almost to the day, I found myself in the middle of one of the most surreal projects of my career: helping bring to life a robotic version of science fiction legend Philip K. Dick. At the time, I was leading corporate R&D and technology commercialization at the FedEx Institute of Technology and also a graduate student at the University of Memphis, serving as the project manager and fundraiser for an ambitious collaboration between our Institute of Intelligent Systems and David Hanson of Hanson Robotics. Together, we set out to build something that could think, speak, and wonder, just like the man who inspired it.
Our goal was to develop a robot that could hold a real-time, unscripted conversation, powered by early AI that processed hundreds of Philip K. Dick’s interviews and writings to recreate his intellect, humor, and curiosity about reality itself. And it worked. The android could look at you, recognize your face, and respond in Dick’s own words. In 2005, it was science fiction come to life.
That same year, we had the honor of receiving “Robot of the Year” from the American Association of Artificial Intelligence: recognition for a project that pushed the boundaries of what “thinking machines” could do.
A book was later written about our journey: How to Build an Android by David Dufty.
Chapter 4 opens with words I still remember fondly:
“Eric Mathews was something of an oddity of a graduate student.”
Fair enough. I suppose being an “oddity” is part of building boldly.
And of course, as many know, the story took a strange turn worthy of Philip K. Dick himself. The robot’s head was mysteriously lost in transit. One moment it was en route to Google HQ; the next, it was gone without a trace. It was a poetic ending for a project about cracking the mysteries of tech innovation.
Looking back from today’s world, where AI can converse, reason, and assist millions of people daily, it’s incredible to realize how far we’ve come. In 2005, we were experimenting with what might be possible. In 2025, we’re living in the reality we once imagined.
The project taught me something that still drives me: innovation happens when you’re willing to take bold, uncomfortable leaps into the unknown. We didn’t simply build a robot. We helped spark a conversation about what it means to build technology with personality, creativity, and even empathy.
Here’s to building boldly: then, now, and always.
