Robot (Electronic book text, New edition)

"Robot" explores the startling and deeply reciprocal connection between humans and their technological brethren, and how this relationship is being redefined as humans develop increasingly complex machines. The impetus to build machines that exhibit life-like behaviours stretches back centuries, but for the last fifteen years much of this work has been done in Rodney Brooks's laboratory at M.I.T. Brooks's behaviour-based or 'bottom-up' approach to robotics turned the field of Artificial Intelligence on its head. Now Brooks's goal is not simply to build machines that are like humans, but to alter our perception of the potential capabilities of robots.Our attitude towards intelligent robots is a reflection of our own view of ourselves. In "Robot", 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, "Robot" presents a vision of our future and our future selves.