AI has revealed that mice have a range of facial expressions that show they feel — offering fresh clues about how emotional responses arise in human brains.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Germany made the discovery by recording the faces of lab mice when they were exposed to different stimuli, such as sweet flavors and electric shocks. The researchers then used machine learning algorithms to analyze how the rodents’ faces changed when they experienced different feelings.

Social roboticist, Heather Knight, sees robots and entertainment a research-rich coupling. So she programmed a charming humanoid robot named DATA with jokes, and equipped it with sensors and algorithmic capabilities to help with timing and gauging a crowd. Then Knight and DATA hit the road on an international robot stand-up comedy tour. Their act landed stage time at a TED conference and Knight was profiled in Forbes 30 Under 30. Watching Data perform is much like watching an amateur stand-up comedian cutting her/his chops at an open mic night doing light comedy with a sweet but wooden delivery.

Knight’s goal is specific:

Researchers at UCSF have trained an algorithm to parse meaning from neural activity.

Ai-Da is the world’s first ultra-realistic artist robot powered by AI and named after Ada Lovelace, the first female computer programmer in the world. She is a humanoid with human facial features and a robotic body created by the Oxfordians, a group of cutting-edge art and technology experts. Embedded with a groundbreaking algorithm, she has taken the scientific and art world by surprise, now becoming an intense subject of conversation in over 900 publications worldwide. She has already collaborated with Tate Exchange and WIRED at the Barbican, Ars Electronica, and will be performing at the Louvre Abu-Dhabi later this year.

Here, she discusses what it means to identify as a creative without a consciousness with Futurist Geraldine Wharry.