Peter Kahn and Wendy Stone were interviewed by National Geographic article on social robots.
The article discussed Peter Kahn’s 2007 paper “"What Is a Human?" in which he and colleagues, proposed a set of psychological benchmarks to measure success in designing humanlike robots. Their emphasis was not on the technical capabilities of robots but on how they're perceived and treated by humans.
The article also describes a prototype robotic system that plays a simple ball game with autistic children. It was developed by Wendy Stone, with Nilanjan Sarkar, when she was at Vanderbilt University. This robot represents a first step toward replicating one of the benchmarks of humanity: knowing that others have thoughts and feelings, and adjusting your behavior in response to them.
“Us. And them. Robots are being created that can think, act, and relate to humans. Are we ready?” http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/robots/carroll-text