Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us

by Rodney A. Brooks

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 037572527X
• ISBN13: 9780375725272
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The distinction between us and robots will disappear

This book sketches the research career of the author, the history and the actual state of robot research as well as his vision of our robotic future. While the pure technical part will mostly appeal to professionals, the techno-philosophical part on `the merger of flesh and machines' is an all important issue for the future of mankind. Man himself is a machine It is generally admitted that the differences between man with his mind and emotions, and artificially creatures can and will never be bridged. But the author remarks astutely that we shouldn't overanthropomorphize ourselves, because we are also only machines. Our mind is the product of brain operations. Our brain, like almost everything in our body is made of biomolecules, which interact according to well-defined physical and chemical rules. All the stuff in people comes from transcriptions of DNA into proteins. Robots as men In principle, it is perfectly possible to build a machine from silicon and steel that has both genuine emotions and consciousness. Within twenty years, the amount of computational power in a personal computer will surpass that in the human brain. The production of a robot with more intelligence than man becomes a distinct possibility. Hybrids Today, there are already hybrids on earth: people walking around with implants which connect electronics directly to the nervous system. Research is going on for the routing of wires within that system. Robots based on the bacterium E. coli are developed which sense molecules, light, pH, electric and magnetic fields. They could be used as sensors for the digital control of molecular cells. Immortality H. Moravec, M. Minsky and R. Kurzweil believe that the combination of robotics, artificial intelligence and computer science can provide a path to immortality! People would be capable to leave their mortal bodies and live in cyberspace after having downloaded their consciousness into a robot-computer. H. Moravec's solution is still more outlandish: a team of surgical robots would slice away little by little pieces of the brain and build a simulator of each neuron! This visionary book is a must read for all those interested in the future of mankind.

Amazingly brilliant, AFSM, Allen, Shakey, Ghenghis, Attila, Hannibal, Gog

Ghenhis was the name of a robot that could walk over anything in its path as it followed a person. Ghenhis had six legs, bumper antennas, and infrared sensors for following the heat of the person signature it is following. The software for Genghis was not organized as a single program but fifty-one parallel programs and Brooks called these programs Augmented finite-state machines (AFSMs). AFSMs can send numbers to components on fixed wires. The first forty eight AFSMs allow Genghis to scramble around rough terrain. The walk machine uses six outputs that sequence the six legs to take steps. Ghenhis allow the robot too be out of balance as it walked and the beta balance machine corrected The Infrared Sensors machine receives input from six pyroelectronic sensors and each one has an on or off state that feed into the prowl or steer machine. These sensors are motion detectors and are tuned to the radiation band emitted by mammals. The prowl machine is connected to inhibit the outputs of the walk finite-state machine. If the robot detected some infrared activity, it walked toward it. If the sensors had been rotated to the back of the robot, it would walk away. Ghenhis had no sense of the directions backward, or forward, or away; it only had interaction embedded in it according to sensor input. Steer machine had left and right IR sensors and if the left sensor fired then the machine sent out a message to the left legs to take smaller steps, and if the right sensor fired then make the right legs take smaller steps. The insectlike Ghenhis was a turning point for robotics. The Ghenhis followed an emergent trajectory that was a product of both of its actions and its situation in the terrain of the world. Brooks robots response to situation with conditional reactions and Cynthia Breazeal set out too write AFSMs in a higher-level language called the Behavior language. Colin Angle and Cynthia Breazeal built twin robots Attila and Hannibal each with 19 motors, 11 onboard computers, and hundreds of sensors. Eventual Breazeal produced over 1,500 AFSMs with her Behavior language code and through a model of pain through inconsistent sensor readings, they were able to ignore bad sensors and reintegrate them once they started to operate again. The legs of the robot were able to cooperate when the robots encountered rough terrain, lifting the body together, holding things up while a leg search for a difficult foot holding, and backing up and going around obstacles when needed. These robots were built from layered control systems without a central cognition box and coupled sensors to actuators. The philosophers George Lakoff and Mark John argued that higher-level representation of language and thought are based on metaphors for our bodily interactions with the world. Metaphors develop from childhood from physical and social experiences, for example affection uses warmeth because the child is exposed to the warmeth of the parents body. High le

An eye, a hand, a leg, and . . .

What are the parts that comprise a human? What is the definition of "consciousness"? Brooks examines these questions in some detail in this book that challenges many assumptions about "what makes us human" and where that might lead. He examines many facets of tool-making, that feature that supposedly set us off from the other animals. From simple tools he moves to the beginnings of computing and how that mathematical science has been transformed into a mechanical one. Computers are now used to control various devices in many ways. As machine complexity developed, the computers granted machines new levels of independence. Control of machines, once reliant on human intervention, has become autonomous. Autonomous machines, he reminds us, are referred to as "robots". Robots have a long history in literature. Although Brooks strangely omits the origin of the term in Karel Capek's "Rossum's Universal Robots" of 1920, he pays understandable homage to Asimov's robotic series. From "I, Robot" onward, robots have been deemed harmless due to Asmiov's Three Laws of Robotics. While designed to allay the fears of the public over human-like mechanical devices, Brooks points out the Laws have little likelihood of implementation. He cites HAL's murderous antics in "2001" as a counter-example. These literary allusions are but background to what Brooks considers truly important. Robots are already among us performing significant tasks in factories and other facilities, including medical roles. The boundary between fantasy and reality will be sundered, he claims. Robotics and "artificial intelligence" have made substantial gains in recent years. He traces the development of "Ghengis", "Cog" and other robots, some "complete" body plans, others comprising combinations of visual and tactile. All of these are experiments in sensitivity, reaction and control under various environments. Some seem to communicate well, or respond to human attention as if "conscious". Brooks makes no extravagant claims for the "consciousness" of these robots. They are, he stresses, but steps in a forward direction. The question then becomes, where will these steps lead? Brooks shows how robot experiments can lead from lab to home. There are already "pet" robots - artificial "dogs" and dolls. Even lawns may now be mown by unattended robots randomly wandering about the yard. House cleaning robots will follow, with different types dealing with various tasks. With every improvement in capability and independent programming, will robots "replace" humans? Brooks contends this scenario is impossible. The image of "self-creative" robots is a fantasy. More significantly, he endorses the notion of robotic replacement body parts. These are already in place as pacemakers and prosthetics. As they improve, the boundary between "flesh and machines" will blur. The integration will not reduce our humanity, he contends, but will give us greater acceptance of the "machine" as

Fascinating

Fascinating predictions on the possible course of human and machine evolution by one of the world's foremost experts in the field. Whether or not one agrees with Brooks and shares (or does not share) his optimism is beside the point. He definitely sparks discussion!

A fantastic insight into the world of Robotics & AI

I picked up this book after hearing Rodney Brooks speak and am very glad I did. The book is an exceptionally well written history, explanation and fore telling of the world of Robotics. Told with the expertise of a ongoing participant Rodney Brooks is clear and especially well informed well beyond his clear knowledge of activity on MITs campus. He describes activity from Standford and CMU to Cornell and, of course, his own AI Lab at MIT. He also discusses succinctly the Japanese robotic effort and recent products by Sony. For anyone wondering about emerging trends, the potential of robotics, or the potential of artifical intelligence (AI) this book is a treasure. Each chapter includes a rich bibliography. My only issue with the book is that it could have benefited from more illustrations and photos.