Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species (Hardcover)

~ (Photographer), (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you believe the children are our future, you're only half right. Photographer Peter Menzel and journalist Faith D'Aluisio traveled around the world interviewing researchers who want to jump-start our evolution by designing and building electrical and mechanical extensions of ourselves--robots. Their book, Robo Sapiens, takes its title from the notion that our species might somehow merge with our creations, either literally or symbiotically. The photography is brilliant, showing the endearing and creepy sides of the robots and roboticists and feeling like stills from unmade science-fiction films. D'Aluisio's interviews are insightful and often very funny, as when she calls MIT superstar Rodney Brooks on his statement that we ought not "overanthropomorphize" people. Brooks is an interesting study. Having shaken up the robotics and artificial-intelligence fields with his elimination of high-level intelligence and dedication to tiny, insectoid, built-from-the-ground-up robots, he now works on large, human-mimicking machines. But hundreds of other researchers, in Japan, Europe, and the United States, are working on various aspects of machine behavior, from the eerily lifelike robotic faces of Fumio Hara and Alvaro Villa to the monkeylike movement of Brachiator III; each of them casts a bit of light on the future of their field in their short interviews. Though it's clear that we shouldn't hold our breath waiting for a robot butler, Robo Sapiens suggests that much cooler--and stranger--events are coming soon. --Rob Lightner

From Publishers Weekly

"Today's robots... are explorers, space laborers, surgeons, maids, actors, pets." What do they look like? How do they work? And what's next? Tech photographer Menzel and journalist D'Aluisio worked together on Material World and Man Eating Bugs. Their latest collaboration joins terrific photos of robotsA176 color pictures of themAto short essays, sidebars and interviews explaining what each robot can do, how it works and what problems it was designed to solve. Several researchers tell D'Aluisio that true artificial intelligence (AI) is coming soonAa couple even believe that smart machines will someday wipe out humans. But this volume doesn't really add up to an argument about our mechanoid future: instead, it's an informativeAand handsomeAview of some current work in robotics, from out-there AI research to practical (and profitable) surgical technology. Menzel and D'Aluisio divide the machines they chronicle into six groups: the first two sets try to copy human abilities, while other sorts of 'bots function more like machines in industry or in science education. Many gizmos have special abilities of obvious, even lifesaving, practical use: "Ariel the crab-robot... walks pretty well underwater"; eventually, it will detect and clear mines. "Rosie," a remote boom crane robot, can help control damage from a reactor meltdown. Other constructions simulate human and animal actions, like running and walkingAa field called "biomimicry." More impressive yet are robots designed to investigate psychology and cognition; some of these are learningAand teaching their creatorsAwhat it means to be human. MIT researcher Cynthia Breazel introduces us to Kismet, a Kermit-the-Frog-esque 'droid whose big-eyed, goofy "facial expressions" (in her words) "tune the human's behavior so that it is appropriate for the robotAnot too much, not too little, just right."
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1st edition (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262133822
• ISBN-13: 978-0262133821
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #348,849 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good read that is also a great coffee table book, January 17, 2001

By	Douglas Welzel (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Robo sapiens is a collection of short interviews with people from all over the field of robotics. Each interview is at most a couple of pages long and is accompanied by beautiful pictures as well as supplementary commentary by the interviewers. The interviews themselves are pretty lightweight. You'll get some idea of what people are working on in the field, but don't expect anything in depth. Overall the book is a good, lightweight read. You can pick it up and read an interview or two and then not touch it for a couple of days. Some reviews have suggested this is a bad thing, but I think it is exactly what the book intends to provide.The book itself is rather large and contains beautiful photographs that have an artistic element to them. This adds to the browseability of the book and makes it something you might want to leave out for others.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful album to browse and contemplate, September 23, 2000

By	Amir Karniel (Israel) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Fifty years ago at the beginning of modern computers scientists predicted that within a few years robots would do the housekeeping and then we would start to try and figure out intelligence tasks such as playing the game of chess. Today we realize that "Simple" tasks such as playing with a ball are much more difficult for artificial machines than many "intelligent" tasks such as playing a game of Chess. I believe that any attempt to produce a genuine artificial intelligence must first address the motor control aspects of our intelligence and therefore I was thrilled to see this book, which explore and glorify the robotics and the motor control research. In one look you are amazed by the modern technology, but then you look again and see that these robots are still struggling to achieve the very basic skills that every child can easily muster. Then you realize that this album really glorify the biological creatures that these robots strive to imitate. We have a long way to go before we reach the prediction of "robo sapience" which is defined in this book as "A hybrid species of human and robot with intelligence vastly superior to that of purely biological mankind". Nevertheless technology did make amazing leaps in the past and it might do it again in the future. I am looking forward to browse this book again at the end of the century with a semi artificial body and mind.

Indeed you don't have to agree with the authors' perspective, as suggested by another reviewer, and indeed, as the authors admit, it is not complete. Still it is a beautiful presentation of the robotics research of our days with magnificent pictures and a fascinating futuristic concept that is encapsulated by its title.

Let me conclude with the words of Sir Arthur C. Clarke from the back cover of the book: "This is one of the most mind-stretching-and frightening-book I've ever read. It's also a tour de force of photography: the images reveal a whole new order of creation about to come into existence. No one who has any interest in the future can afford to miss it."

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bargain for those who love 'bots, October 16, 2000

By	Christopher Burian (Waltham, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this book for the pictures, and I'm not disappointed. The grainy pictures viewed in hard-to-find magazines, or worse, published only on the web, don't do justice to the amazing creations of robotics experimenters. My only (admittedly frivolous) complaint is that it's not true coffee-table-book sized. Packed with original content, Robo sapiens beats every other glossy general audience robot book I've ever seen.