The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet (Leonardo Books) [Hardcover]

Ken Goldberg (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 20, 2000 | Series: Leonardo Book Series

The Robot in the Garden initiates a critical theory of telerobotics and introduces telepistemology, the study of knowledge acquired at a distance. Many of our most influential technologies, the telescope, telephone, and television, were developed to provide knowledge at a distance. Telerobots, remotely controlled robots, facilitate action at a distance. Specialists use telerobots to explore actively environments such as Mars, the Titanic, and Chernobyl. Military personnel increasingly employ reconnaissance drones and telerobotic missiles. At home, we have remote controls for the garage door, car alarm, and television (the latter a remote for the remote).The Internet dramatically extends our scope and reach. Thousands of cameras and robots are now accessible online. Although the role of technical mediation has been of interest to philosophers since the seventeenth century, the Internet forces a reconsideration. As the public gains access to telerobotic instruments previously restricted to scientists and soldiers, questions of mediation, knowledge, and trust take on new significance for everyday life.Telerobotics is a mode of representation. But representations can misrepresent. If Orson Welles's "War of the Worlds" was the defining moment for radio, what will be the defining moment for the Internet? As artists have always been concerned with how representations provide us with knowledge, the book also looks at telerobotics' potential as an artistic medium.The seventeen essays, by leading figures in philosophy, art, history, and engineering, are organized into three sections: Philosophy; Art, History, and Critical Theory; and Engineering, Interface, and System Design.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It may be trite to say that new technology changes the way we see ourselves and the world, but it's crucial that we explore those changes fully. In The Robot in the Garden, computer scientist Ken Goldberg curates a collection of essays on telerobotics by critics, philosophers, and engineers, addressing questions as fundamental as, "How does mediation affect the knowledge we acquire?"

This book is a heady look at how remotely operated machines are affecting our beliefs and understanding of our interactions with each other and with the environment; while it's unlikely that every piece will interest every reader, anyone concerned with the future of art, technology, or society will find plenty to think about. Judith Donath, of MIT's Media Lab, asks how we define identity over the Internet and other electronic means of distant communication. Media art critic Machiko Kusahara reviews the current work of five telerobotic artists and their questioning of attitudes toward fundamental concepts like presence and absence. Philosopher Hubert L. Dreyfus cuts to the chase and examines knowledge itself in "Telepistemology: Descartes's Last Stand." Knowing that we know something is hard enough without miles of cables between our minds and the objects of our knowledge, but is technologically mediated information really different in kind?

Eighteen essays in all contribute to the discussion of remote action. As we expand our bodies to include webcam eyes and robot arms, such questions become more and more important to thinking people, and we can start looking for answers with The Robot in the Garden. --Rob Lightner

Review

" The Robot in the Garden brings together some of the most profound thinkers currently writing about such issues as telepresence, internet art, and the status of the real in a virtual age. Moreover, they frequently disagree with one another, an indication of the intellectual vitality of this work. Ken Goldberg"s discussion of his pioneering work with robotic art sets the high standard that other distinguished contributors carry on, from Martin Jay to Eduardo Kac, Lev Manovich to Albert Borgmann. Don"t miss out on this important collection." N. Katherine Hayles , Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles

" The Robot in the Garden brings together some of the most profound thinkerscurrently writing about such issues as telepresence, internet art, and the statusof the real in a virtual age. Moreover, they frequently disagree with oneanother, an indication of the intellectual vitality of this work. Ken Goldberg"sdiscussion of his pioneering work with robotic art sets the high standard thatother distinguished contributors carry on, from Martin Jay to Eduardo Kac, LevManovich to Albert Borgmann. Don"t miss out on this important collection." N. Katherine Hayles , Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles

" The Robot in the Garden brings together some of the most profound thinkers currently writing about such issues as telepresence, internet art, and the status of the real in a virtual age. Moreover, they frequently disagree with one another, an indication of the intellectual vitality of this work. Ken Goldberg"s discussion of his pioneering work with robotic art sets the high standard that other distinguished contributors carry on, from Martin Jay to Eduardo Kac, Lev Manovich to Albert Borgmann. Don"t miss out on this important collection." N. Katherine Hayles , Professor of English, University of California, Los Angeles

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 330 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1St Edition edition (March 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262072033
• ISBN-13: 978-0262072038
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,282,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ken Goldberg
Professor, IEOR and EECS
craigslist Distinguished Professor of New Media
Director, Berkeley Center for New Media
College of Engineering and School of Information
UC Berkeley


Ken Goldberg is an artist and professor at UC Berkeley. He is Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media, and Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, with secondary appointments in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and in the School of Information.

Goldberg received his PhD in Computer Science from CMU in 1990 and studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Edinburgh University, and the Technion. From 1991-95 he taught at the University of Southern California, and in Fall 2000 was visiting faculty at MIT Media Lab.

Goldberg and his students work in two areas: Geometric Algorithms for Automation, and Networked Robots. In the first category, he develops algorithms for feeding, sorting, and fixturing industrial parts, with an emphasis on mathematically rigorous solutions that require a minimum of sensing and actuation so as to reduce costs and increase reliability. In the area of Networked Robots, Goldberg and colleagues developed the first robot publically operable via the Internet (in 1994). He has published over 100 research papers and edited four books.

In 2004, Goldberg co-founded the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering and is Founding Chair of its Advisory Board. Goldberg was named National Science Foundation Young Investigator in 1994 and NSF/Whitehouse Presidential Faculty Fellow in 1995. He is the recipient of the Joseph Engelberger Award (2000), the IEEE Major Educational Innovation Award (2001) and was elected IEEE Fellow in 2005.

Goldberg lives in Mill Valley with his daughter and wife, filmmaker and Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain.

More information on Goldberg's research and teaching: http://goldberg.berkeley.edu
More information on Goldberg's artwork: http://www.ken.goldberg.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Agency and Knowledge on the Internet & Telepistemology, August 21, 2001

By 

Arun Kumar (Darmstadt, Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet (Leonardo Books) (Hardcover)

The anthology of Prof. Ken Goldberg discusses the questions such as What is the essential relationship between distance and knowledge? How to technologies affect this relationship? How does technology alter our perceptions of distance and scale and our understanding of truth? What are the limits to the new technologies and how do they depend on existing human perceptual, cognitive and active capacities? How much can a human being change, even when equipped with an armory of telerobotic apparatus and how much can the concept of being human change?

"The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology on the Net" documents the projects and provokes thought with critical essays on its philosophical and cultural implications.

The book is highly recommended to philosophers, media artists and robotics engineers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Personal Roving Presence devices ProPs, March 2, 2006

By 

Golden Lion "Reader" (North Ogden, Ut United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistemology in the Age of the Internet (Leonardo Books) (Paperback)

Webcams are a set of wired eyes giving expansion to our personal space and time envelope. The cyberspace of the net operates more or less independent of physical space, terrain, or geography and the built landscape meaning cyberspace attempts to symbolize reality in virtual. The "World Wide Web" provides inexpensive and ready access to a global computer network. Web cameras have are on interpretative aspect bridging the gulf between reality and virtual reality, mapping reality into cyberspace. People all over the world are able to keep in touch with everyone electronically. Goldberg says, "our mind expanding to all parts of the Universe", supposing the world to be produced by our mind, but how does the mind justify reality? Decartes skepticism possesses the possibility of deception, stating, "since senses can malfunction, all information about the body and the external world is intrinsically unreliable." One thought is that reliability is established through rational justification. Epistemology attempts to determine how and to what extent our everyday beliefs about the world can be justified. Conventionally, philosophy abandoned Epistemology declaring there must be something wrong with the view that the mind as having only an indirect access to reality. Our basic relationship to reality is direct. Global skeptical doubts are incompatible with everyday experience. Humans are essentially a being (physical and spiritual) in the world, and assume roles of leadership. Cognition does not defined existence nor does the ability to mentally abstract. Without roles of leadership, morality, and law - chaos would clashes between spheres of intelligent agents. "I think therefore I am" is incomplete because it does not explain how humans make sense of everyday things and themselves and their relationship to other humans. Albert Borgman said, "the presentation of reality in cyberspace is shallow and discontinuous". Continuous experiences, connected meaning, and aesthetic value are critical themes for appreciating man existence. Goldberg believes that Epistemology will return in the age to protect against deception in the age of Virtual reality.

Technology has been condemned as the spoiler of the garden and yet embraces, on the other hand, as necessary too getting back to nature. Technology distills or amplifies certain interpretative aspects of the natural world.

Personal Roving Presence devices ProPs are simple, inexpensive, internet controlled, untethered tele-robots. ProPs do not exist in the virtual world, they exist in the physical world. ProP is an individual presence, and represents a unique remote participant. ProPs are cubist statues, with rearrangements of face and arms, and separation of eyes from gaze; they support gaze, proxemics (body location), gesture, posture, and dialogue. The controller or designer of ProPs discovers the importance of various sensing and action channels on higher behaviors by pulling switches and looking for change at the higher levels becoming students learning by decomposing social behaviors. The pilot is interacting with the control interface rather than people, however, if the human-machine coupling is tight enough, and if the pilot is expert at using the machine, the interface disappears.

In 1995, remote web users were querying Mechanical Gaze, commanding its six degree-of-freedom robotic arm to browse and explore real remote artifacts and tangibles, at museums associate with UC Berkley. In 1996, Space Browsers when airborne and they consisted of a helium filled blimp with several light weight motors directly connected to propellers and onboard the blimp were a color video camera, microphone, speaker, simple electronics, and radio links. The design was small enough to allow navigation down narrow hallways, up stairwells, into elevators, and through doorways. Blimp behavior and appearance made them non-threatening and easily approachable. A user on the internet can pilot the blimp using a simple Java applet on the browser. Wireless signals transmitted to the blimp guide it up and down and left and right. The pilot observes the real world from the vantage of the blimp while listening to the sounds and conversations within its proximity and converse with groups and individuals by speaking into the microphone. Today's social machines are toys with computer cores and capabilities like touch sensing and speech. The can participate in reasonable complex interactive behaviors and are capable of situational activity. The toy response by touching by talking or playing encouraging the child to use touch to communicate, yet the toy can not hug back. Eventually toys will be able to hug back or be remotely controlled to hug back through remote control by a parent and be capable of generating familiar voice patterns. Tele-touch connects two simple touch sensors and haptic actuators together to create Datamitt. A participant in Los Angeles places his hand inside a tube and squeezes and a participant in New York will feel the pressure. The success of this simple inexpensive low-resolution device is promising.

IRobot PackBot is used by the military to assist with Ordinance disposal. It has a robotic arm that can be remotely control reaching as far as 2 meters in any direction. It can traverse stairs, curbs, rubble, rocks, sand and mud. It has a high power rotating and pan zoom camera (300x) and a laser range finder to help size objects and determine position.