Robo Sapiens 30
| Robo Sapiens | |
| author | Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio |
| pages | 240 |
| publisher | MIT Press |
| rating | 8.5 |
| reviewer | mtDNA |
| ISBN | 0-262-13382-2 |
| summary | A coffee-table survey course in words and pictures on the state of robots at the turn of the century. |
Robo sapiens is the latest offering in the "Material World" series produced by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio, which includes Material World: A Global Family Portrait (1995) and Man Eating Bugs: The Art and Science of Eating Insects (1998). On the outside, Robo sapiens is an ordinary coffee table book. On the inside, however, is something different. Robo sapiens sets out to document the state of the art in robotics and artificial intelligence by talking to over fifty active researchers and photographing them with the tools of their trade. The book succeeds brilliantly. With sharp, beautifully reproduced photographs and engaging, well composed text, Robo sapiens provides an overview of robotics research that is simultaneously surreal, comically entertaining and dead serious.
The book is motivated by two main questions: What are robotics researchers working on? and Where are robots headed?
The book attempts to answer these questions through a sequence of profiles. Each profile is roughly two to three pages long and includes an interview, a description of a specific robot of interest and one or more relevant photographs.
The interview with Cynthia Breazeal, the creator of Kizmet (a robot that specializes in communication through facial expression), is typical. It includes Kizmet's basic specifications, photos of Kismet partly disassembled, a photo of Breazeal working on Kismet and several photos of Kismet in action. An interview with Breazeal discusses the general motivations for making a robot use facial expressions and her general approach to artificial intelligence.
Menzel is a terrific photographer, and every shot reflects attention to detail. Menzel tried to capture each robot with its designer (preferably while they were interacting) but there are plenty of photos of bots on their own. Some of my favorites were of BIT (a baby-doll-bot), Kismet (a face-bot with expressions) and Robopike (a fish-bot that swims). Several of the pictures, like the face robot on the cover, the surgery robot in the front pages and the baby (BIT) robot on the back cover are nightmarish or psychadelic, but these are the minority. All of the photos are at least slightly staged, but for the most part they are documentary and stylized only for added interest. Several photos from the book can be found on the Robo sapiens web page.
Research-based approaches to robotics vary widely, and the range of
interviews in Robo sapiens varies accordingly. Many of the major
players in robotics and artificial intelligence are represented: Ronald
Arkin, Rodney
Brooks, Raymond Kurzweil,
Hans Moravec and Marc Raibert are
there, to name just a few. A number of people not usually considered
to be roboticists, like Robert
Full and Paul
McCready, are positive additions to the book's broad scope.
The interviews are surprisingly candid and telling. At one point,
Rodney Brooks concedes that he could be wrong about behavior-based
subsumption being fundamental, and that he might just be "a grumpy old
asshole." (his words, not mine). At another point, two researchers (Eric
Baumgartner and Terry
Huntsberger) scramble to explain why their Mars rover is tethered,
which would seem to be a problem on an interplanetary mission (it's to
allow emergency shutdowns during testing). An inspiring feature of
every interview is the enthusiasm that shines through. These people
are having a darn good time and they make you want to join in the fun.
The answer to the first question posed by the book, "What are robotics
researchers working on?", is well answered. In a series of six
chapters (Electric dreams, Robo sapiens, Bio
logical, Remote possibilities, Work mates and
Serious fun), Menzel and D'Aluisio document a diversity of
approaches that is truly remarkable in both behavior and
mechanism. They range from Mark
Tilden's primitivley elegant analog BEAM-bots
to Honda's computationally brutish P-series. Robots that swim, walk, crawl, roll, swing
and fly
are all described. The conclusion is that research in robotics and
artificial intelligence is far more diverse than most people would
expect: applications range from human-bot
social interactions to dynamic
prosthetics to meteorite
hunting.
The answer to the second question posed by the book, "Where are robots
headed?", is less clear. This question is asked in many of the
interviews explicitly and answers vary across a spectrum. Some
interviewees, like Hans Moravec and Kevin Warwick, seem convinced
that robots will eventually supplant or subsume the human
species. Others, like Rodney Brooks and Mark Tilden, are more
skeptical. One of the funniest interviews is with Tilden, who
describes how he built a robot butler that ran into trouble with
cleaning. The butler-bot couldn't tell the difference between dirt and
cat food, so it vacuumed up the food and the cat went hungry. Tilden's
point isn't that nobody can build a bot that can distinguish dirt and
cat food, but that endowing bots with the kind of abstract
intelligence that comes naturally to humans is a serious problem. It
is clear that future directions include the development of new forms
of intelligence, but it is unclear what forms these intelligences will
take.
My main critism of Robo sapiens is its treatment of points of
disagreement in the field. The question of whether robots will take
over the world is presented as central, but in reality that question
is only of marginal (if any) real interest to professionals. More
important controversies, such as about the best way to implement
artificial intelligence, are easy to find. One question that could
have been asked is, "How is intelligence constructed?". Hearing the
perspectives of people who actually design and build serious bots
would be interesting. For example, some discussion of the differences
between traditional sense-model-plan-act models of intelligence and
newer behavior-based subsumption models by the people that actually
use them would give a good idea of the practical constraints of each
approach, as well as possible compromises. It would easily have been
possible to discuss some of these issues without going over the heads
of ordinary readers. One simple, illustrative observation would be
that increases in the performance of artifical intelligence have not
been described by Moore's Law. Why not? Speculation on the answer
could only be informative.
Other minor shortcomings of the book are its lack of attention to the
roles of history and non-professional researchers in the field. For
the ordinary person, the mention of robots and artificial intelligence
evokes images of HAL, Rosie, C3PO or even Frankenstein's
monster. These images are an important consideration in the
development of the robots we see today and in their general role in
public life. Why isn't an airplane autopilot called a robot pilot?
These issues are mentioned, but only briefly. Discussions with
academicians and industry specialists dominate the book but
sophisticated hobbyists are a significant presence in the real
world. It's a shame not to give them some space.
Most of the deficiencies of the book are resolved by a quick look on
the internet. Many of the researchers profiled in Robo sapiens
have homepages that provide online versions of their technical
articles and further information. Information about the work of
amateurs and hobbyists is abundant online as well. Fred Martin's Handyboard, for example, has been
integrated into all kinds of interesting projects. While Robo
sapiens is directed at the educated layman and thus not a good
source of technical information by itself, the book could be a
useful starting point in finding robots and researchers in
specific categories.
If you're propeller-head to the point of pathology, be warned: Robo
sapiens isn't a technical document and may be disappointing. For
the rest of us Robo sapiens is outstanding and at $29.95 (USD)
it's a bargain. I heartily recommend Robo sapiens to anyone who
even has a passing interest in who robotics researchers are, what they
are doing, or where robots are headed.
You can purchase this book at ThinkGeek.
Re:Like all new tech, until robots do porn (Score:1)
AI and Moore's law (Score:1)
One simple, illustrative observation would be that increases in the performance of artifical intelligence have not been described by Moore's Law. Why not? Speculation on the answer could only be informative.
Reminds me of something Robert Heinlein once wrote:
Suppose we had an AI system as smart as a dog and increased it's computational resources a thousand times. What would happen?
We would get a system that in practically no time at all decides to sniff your butt :-)
Re:Robot Combat (Score:2)
Robot Combat (Score:5)
Re:Interesting (Score:1)
Not so great... (Score:1)
My geek view... (Score:2)
Anyhow, it is not much more than robo-porn. Cheap entertainment disguised as reference.
The first time I saw it, I passed it up for Gordon McComb's updated 2nd Edition (long overdue) "99 Inexpensive Robotics Projects" and another project book containing a bunch of the Amateur Robotics columns from Nuts and Volts. These two are books really discussing the "where it is happening" in robotics - not in labs, but in garages - where it has always been happening for over 30 years.
This book will appeal to robot "stuff" collectors - I myself admit that I might buy it someday, but with full knowledge of what it really is, and not what it pretends to be (I have an older "art/coffee table" robot book called ROBOTS - can't remember the author - one thing I do like about many of the older "pop"-robotic books is that they tend to be the only reference to historical hobby robotics from the 70's and early 80's).
Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
Re:Like all new tech, until robots do porn (Score:2)
We are the space robots (Score:2)
I am the pusher robot.
Shoving will protect you.
I am the shover robot.
Pushing will protect you.
Do you have stairs in your house?
Please go stand by your stairs.
So I can protect you.
Grandpa is protected.
Grandpa has gone down the stairs
Grandpa is protected at the bottom of the stairs.
Gratuitously stolen from The Laziest Men on Mars.
Re:Most sucessful robots don't have human qualitie (Score:1)
It causes less balance. get rid of it. It's not like robots will have sex.
Re:Most sucessful robots don't have human qualitie (Score:1)
Now, why should we compare machine intelligence to human intelligence? Because machines (and especially robots) are usually developed to do tasks that would otherwise have to be done by humans. If we want robots that do general purpose kinds of things and are easy to interact with, a human look-and-feel makes sense. It's an interface that everyone is able to use instinctively. Granted, not everyone wants these kinds of robots hanging around, and not everyone thinks it's a good idea, but many people do, so they will be developed.
The Word Robot (Score:2)
But does it cover (Score:2)
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
Don't let robots take our place (Score:1)
--
Robots will save us... (Score:1)
*This* century? (Score:1)
Surely you mean *last* century? I'm forever reading "...this century...", people keep forgetting that it's now the 21st century, *not* the 20th!
Alex. -- Sigs are a waste of space.
Robots schmobots (Score:1)
Why back in my day, we didn't have none of them fancy robots. All we had were golems, made out of clay. And when I say clay, I don't mean any of this fancy schmancy Play-Doh stuff. No, we had go down to the Moldavka river and mold it ourselves. And once we wanted to instruct the golem, we didn't have any of these easy, off-the-shelf software packages to do the work for us. No siree, we had to get a piece of paper and write out by hand what we wanted the golem to do. My handwriting's so terrible that if I had a quarter for every time the golem decided I wanted it to "bake my bed" or "mow the lan" (and the lan wasn't anything of that fancy ethernet stuff -- we used token-ring and liked it!), I'd be a rich man today.
Cool Book (Score:1)
Eeriest photo: robot surgeon working on a cadaver, I guess they've got to practice on something, but it sure seemed like a scene from the Re-Animator.
or... (Score:2)
Imagine a beowulf cluster of Toasters!
--
Re:Like all new tech, until robots do porn (Score:2)
--
Like all new tech, until robots do porn (Score:2)
Think VHS, Cable, Sattelite dishes, the internet.
So, once we get robotocized Real Dolls [realdoll.com] watch out!
Though they'll probably be played up as fun companions, instead of sexual surrogates, considering how schizo Americans are about sex and pleasure.
Most sucessful robots don't have human qualities? (Score:2)
Voyager, Viking, Pioneer, and Galileo are examples of robots made in the last 20 years that don't look anything at all like a human. And that new robot lawn mower doesn't look like the neighbor kid pushing a steel and plastic frame. I think we applaud those designers that put aside the idea that a robot has to look like us and instead put it in the shape of a tool.
As for intelligence, for the most part people are pretty stupid. When the robot can't tell the difference between cat food and dirt it get's points marked off and is seen as "not intelligent." If Uncle Fred can't tell the difference we mark it down as "Uncle Fred just being Uncle Fred" and call it a day. If the neighbor kid misses a section of the lawn I might yell at him for being stupid. Yet if the robo mower misses a spot I might call tech support, ask for help and have them yell me for being stupid because I didn't RTFM.
Field? (Score:3)
Non-expert in the field. I'd be scared to meet the *expert* in the field.
Wired (Score:1)
Re:Similarites don't mean the same thing (Score:1)
Re:The Word Robot (Score:1)
Re:Most sucessful robots don't have human qualitie (Score:1)
Even the simplest tools are made for use with our ergonomy, so making the robot adapt to them should be {cheaper, faster, better} than make the tools adapt to the robot, IMHO.
Interesting (Score:1)
Re:Similarites don't mean the same thing (Score:1)
robo = robot
sapien = thinking
So "robo sapien" is "thinking robot." Looks fine to me...
Re:Don't let robots take our place (Score:1)
Robotics as a science are far from becoming our masters. While the physical portion of their existence may be up to snuff, the artificial intelligence to, say, drive a robot out of a paper bag isn't quite there yet.
But they are taking jobs from hard working americans. look at our steel mills, our machine tool shops, and our auto manufacturing processes. All the workers do is watch the switchboards that control the robots.
So basically if you're in the profession of physical labor, you're screwed. But if you're in the profession of thinking for a living (like most
Sounds good to me!