Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, then a graduate student, developed the robot Kismet as part of a project at the MIT Media Lab in 1998. With a cartoonish face and a squeaky baby voice, it could perceive a variety of social cues and display emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, calmness, surprise, disgust, tiredness, and the state of sleep).

The name Kismet comes from a Turkish word meaning "fate" or sometimes "luck".

Kismet is currently displayed at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts.