cover image FLESH AND MACHINES: How Robots Will Change Us

FLESH AND MACHINES: How Robots Will Change Us

Rodney Allen Brooks, . . Pantheon, $26 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-375-42079-5

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)