Sangeet “Sunny” Khemlani spends his days building artificial intelligence (AI) systems that can reason the same way humans do. This is a huge challenge, and although current AI systems can mimic certain forms of human reasoning, very few get it right every single time. Before college, Khemlani thought his career would be in an artistic field, such as graphic design, animation, or film. He was always interested in technology and looked for areas where imagination and science overlapped. He found this synergy in a cognitive science courses where he learned about sensation, perception, reasoning and and machine thinking.

The U.S. Navy has many challenges with keeping its sailors safe at sea and its fleet in top working order. Robot systems equipped with artificial intelligence can help with tasks at sea that are repetitious and potentially dangerous—such as maintaining electrical systems. Khemlani says he is most inspired when small groups of people work on big ideas and build something that positively impacts lots of people, such as the BIGHT robot featured in this segment.