Robot Futures

by Illah Reza Nourbakhsh

Overview

A roboticist imagines life with robots that sell us products, drive our cars, even allow us to assume new physical form, and more.

With robots, we are inventing a new species that is part material and part digital. The ambition of modern robotics goes beyond copying humans, beyond the effort to make walking, talking androids that are indistinguishable from people. Future robots will have superhuman abilities in both the physical and digital realms. They will be embedded in our physical spaces, with the ability to go where we cannot, and will have minds of their own, thanks to artificial intelligence. In Robot Futures, the roboticist Illah Reza Nourbakhsh considers how we will share our world with these creatures, and how our society could change as it incorporates a race of stronger, smarter beings.

Nourbakhsh imagines a future that includes adbots offering interactive custom messaging; robotic flying toys that operate by means of “gaze tracking”; robot-enabled multimodal, multicontinental telepresence; and even a way that nanorobots could allow us to assume different physical forms. Nourbakhsh examines the underlying technology and the social consequences of each scenario. He also offers a counter-vision: a robotics designed to create civic and community empowerment. His book helps us understand why that is the robot future we should try to bring about.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262313193
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	03/01/2013
Series:	The MIT Press
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	201 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Illah Reza Nourbakhsh is K&L Gates Professor of Ethics and Computational Technologies in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of Robot Futures and coauthor of Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots (both published by the MIT Press).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xiii

1 New Mediocracy 1

2 Robot Smog 19

3 Dehumanizing Robots 49

4 Attention Dilution Disorder 65

5 Brainspotting 85

6 Which Robot Future? A Way Forward 109

Glossary 121

References 125

Index 131

What People are Saying About This

George A. Bekey

Robot Futures is a highly imaginative view of the ways robotics may change both our technology and our view of ourselves. Every chapter begins with a fictional but plausible future scenario involving human/robot interaction. Anyone concerned with the potential impact of robotics on society and human relationships should read this book.

Endorsement

An exhilarating dash into the future of robotics from a scholar with the enthusiasm of a bag of monkeys. It is gripping from the start with little sci-fi stories in each chapter punching home points backed up forcefully by factual reality. This is an entertaining tour de force that will appeal to anyone with an interest in robots.

—Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, University of Sheffield

From the Publisher

Robot Futures is a highly imaginative view of the ways robotics may change both our technology and our view of ourselves. Every chapter begins with a fictional but plausible future scenario involving human/robot interaction. Anyone concerned with the potential impact of robotics on society and human relationships should read this book.

—George A. Bekey, Computer Science Department, University of Southern California; author of Autonomous Robots

An exhilarating dash into the future of robotics from a scholar with the enthusiasm of a bag of monkeys. It is gripping from the start with little sci-fi stories in each chapter punching home points backed up forcefully by factual reality. This is an entertaining tour de force that will appeal to anyone with an interest in robots.

—Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, University of Sheffield

Noel Sharkey

An exhilarating dash into the future of robotics from a scholar with the enthusiasm of a bag of monkeys. It is gripping from the start with little sci-fi stories in each chapter punching home points backed up forcefully by factual reality. This is an entertaining tour de force that will appeal to anyone with an interest in robots.

Editorial Reviews

Robotics professor Nourbakhsh (Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots) shares his vision of a future in which robotic technology will revolutionize the way humans communicate, collect data, complete tasks, and practice medicine. "Robotic technologies are the living glue connecting the physical and digital all around us." While current applications of robotics are highlighted, such as urban search and rescue robotics, the possibilities that may take form in the coming decades are the focus of this brief discourse. This "technological empowerment" will benefit corporations, militaries, and governments as well as individuals—with the possible drawback that "humans will be inferior to robots in some ways." Each chapter in Nourbakhsh's discussion of current technologies begins with an illustrative, fictional story, narrating a future event of this century. He explores the robotic concepts of perception and cognition, the ethics of robotics and the possibility that they could impact human relations, and the responsibilities that lie with researchers and funding institutions. Urging that these technologies include the needs of citizens and communities, Nourbakhsh recommends review of current curricula to include humanist concerns. Concise and illuminating with few detours into engineering-speak, this book will interest a broad technology-minded audience, from future scientists to data analysts to entrepreneurs. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

The best parts of the book are the crazy scenarios Nourbakhsh comes up with—like malfunctioning eye-controlled toy helicopters and robot-enabled infidelity. His preference for a future in which robots are employed to serve communities, not individuals or corporations, is innovative—if less fun than the nightmare robots that populate his chapters.—Slate—

In robotics, there is a fine line between science fiction and science fact. Illah Reza Nourbakhsh turns out to be a master of straddling that line. In this accessible, smart book, he suggests how plausible robot futures could change our lives.

—George Annas, New Scientist—

Concise and illuminating with few detours into engineering-speak, this book will interest a broad technology-minded audience, from future scientists to data analysts to entrepreneurs.

—Publishers Weekly—

From the Publisher

Concise and illuminating with few detours into engineering-speak, this book will interest a broad technology-minded audience, from future scientists to data analysts to entrepreneurs.

—Publishers Weekly

Reviews

In robotics, there is a fine line between science fiction and science fact. Illah Reza Nourbakhsh turns out to be a master of straddling that line. In this accessible, smart book, he suggests how plausible robot futures could change our lives.

New Scientist - George Annas

The best parts of the book are the crazy scenarios Nourbakhsh comes up with—like malfunctioning eye-controlled toy helicopters and robot-enabled infidelity. His preference for a future in which robots are employed to serve communities, not individuals or corporations, is innovative—if less fun than the nightmare robots that populate his chapters.

Slate

04/01/2015
This slim volume extrapolates from the present day to various hypothetical future scenarios with respect to the pace of robotic technological development and its societal repercussions. Nourbakhsh is professor of robotics and head of the Robotics Masters Program at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, so he knows robots.

Library Journal