Robotics & Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence - General, Science & Technology - Forecasting

Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us

Name: Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us
Author: Rodney A. Brooks
ISBN: 9780375421938

by Rodney A. Brooks

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Overview

Flesh and Machines explores the startlingly reciprocal connection between humans and their technological brethren, and explains how this relationship is being redefined as humans develop increasingly complex machines. The impetus to build machines that exhibit lifelike behaviors stretches back centuries, but for the last fifteen years much of this work has been done in Rodney Brooks’s laboratory at MIT. His goal is not simply to build machines that are like humans but to alter our perception of the potential capabilities of robots. Our current attitude toward intelligent robots, he asserts, is simply a reflection of our own view of ourselves.

In Flesh and Machines, Brooks challenges that view by suggesting that human nature can be seen to possess the essential characteristics of a machine. Our instinctive rejection of that idea, he believes, is itself a conditioned response: we have programmed ourselves to believe in our “tribal specialness” as proof of our uniqueness.

Provocative, persuasive, compelling, and unprecedented, Flesh and Machines presents a vision of our future and our future selves.

Synopsis

From the director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory—“a stimulating book written by one of the major players in the field—perhaps the major player.... Offers surprisingly deep glimpses into what it is to be human” (The New York Times Book Review). Are we really on the brink of having robots to mop our floors, do our dishes, mow our lawns, and clean our windows? And are researchers that close to creating robots that can think, feel, repair themselves, and even reproduce? Rodney A. Brooks believes we are. In this lucid and accessible book, Brooks vividly depicts the history of robots and explores the ever-changing relationships between humans and their technological brethren, speculating on the growing role that robots will play in our existence. Knowing the moral battle likely to ensue, he posits a clear philosophical argument as to why we should not fear that change. What results is a fascinating book that offers a deeper understanding of who we are and how we can control what we will become.

About the Author, Rodney A. Brooks

Rodney A. Brooks is Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at MIT and director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He is also chairman and chief technological officer of iRobot Corporation. He is a founding fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The author of several books and a contributor to many journals, he was one of the subjects of Errol Morris’s 1997 documentary, Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. Brooks was born in Australia and now lives in suburban Boston.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

In the '80s and early '90s, Australian-born Rodney Allen Brooks turned the world of artificial intelligence upside down with his behavior-based approach to robotics. Now the controversial director of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory explains how robotics with embodied cognition are transforming our lives in ways that even Steven Spielberg never quite imagined.

The New Yorker

In 1739, the French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson unveiled his latest startling creation: an anatomically convincing, yet wholly mechanical, duck -- one that quacked, ate grain, and, most impressively, excreted. Vaucanson's mechanical duck was a sensation, and, as Rodney A. Brooks relates in his engaging Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, one of the celebrated early attempts to replicate -- or, at least, imitate -- life. Brooks, who showed up in the Errol Morris documentary "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control," directs the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at M.I.T., and "Flesh and Machines" tells the odd history -- from that Enlightenment duck to Deep Blue, a computer program that famously beat Garry Kasparov at chess -- of what he calls "mankind's centuries-long quest to build artificial creatures." Recently, Brooks oversaw the development of Kismet, "the world's first robot that is truly sociable, that can interact with people on an equal basis." (Kismet has outsized eyeballs and fuzzy brows and sometimes gets lonely.) But what if, like Hal in "2001: A Space Odyssey," the sentient machines take over? Brooks argues that this can never happen, since, very soon, all of us "will become a merger between flesh and machines."

It will be decades before hobbyists can build their own Kismets at home. But, as "technogeek bot builder" William Gurstelle makes clear in Building Bots, it's easy to whip up simpler, angrier creatures -- say, a sledgehammer-wielding thwack-bot. In this handy how-to guide for turning your garage into a robot war zone (think mechanical gamecocks), Gurstelle examines the growing popularity of "combat robotics," a sport that he predicts could soon "grow into another NASCAR."

(Mark Rozzo)

Publishers Weekly

Brooks, a leading "roboticist" and computer science professor at MIT, believes that robots in the future will probably be nothing like such all-knowing brain machines as 2001's HAL, nor will they resemble the sleek cyborgs of other Hollywood nightmares. Rather, they will be simple, ubiquitous, curious little machines that will have more in common with humans than one might think. Brooks, and his fellow researchers, suggest that the focus of much AI and robot research has been to develop superhuman devices that operate at the highest intellectual levels. Much better, he says, to make a lot of simple, cheap robots that can perform only a few tasks, but do them well. Brooks begins with a brief but comprehensive overview of the field of research into AI and robotics, then dives quickly into his and his fellow enthusiasts' work as they engineer one strange, insect-looking (and weirdly human-acting) metallic creature after another. Occasionally, Brooks's involvement with iRobots (he is chairman and chief technical officer of the robot company) shifts the book into an advertisement for upcoming products. Brooks points the way toward a future where humans work in tandem with and even begin to resemble a host of his fast, cheap creations not a science fiction utopia, but a future where people have a lot more and better tools to work with. (Feb. 20) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Australian-born Brooks, director of MIT's renowned Artificial Intelligence Lab and chairman of iRobot Corp., offers a unique perspective on the past, present, and future of robotics.