Editor Laura talks with Mr. Brooks about his new book on robotics. As you listen, answer the questions or complete the notes in

W: I really enjoyed your book. You are one of the robotics pioneers. This’s why I’m very excited to find out that at last you’re writing a book to give readers the first-time description of how robotics has been developing and where it is going. And what prompt you to write the book now?
M: There is a confluence of three things happening in robotics right now then I thought what it was worth describing to the world. First, the old version of robots is now being refined and developed in cooperated research labs. So that they’re starting to pick the consumer market. Now the first generation of home robots, robot toys, lawn mowers and floor cleaners are starting to be sold through retail outlets. Second, more recent work in university research labs has led to robots that they were able to interact with humans in such life-like ways that they illuminate the question of whether we are anything more than machines and whether we will soon be able to build Sandia machines. And third, robotic technology is now being implanted in people to compensate for losses caused by diseases. We find ourselves on the thresh-hold of roboticizing on our own bodies. Since I’ve been involved in the aspects of all these developments, I thought I had some interesting perspectives to share with our readers.
W: I have to say I’ve been especially interested in the notion of embodiment and how that relates to the ideas of robots learning and evolving, and ways came to biologically evolution. I also enjoyed your discussion of the possibility of machines such as these becoming conscious in some point.
M: Well, I think this is a question we will need to address in the future. I think we’ll have some marginally simpler ethical issues to deal with in the shorter term over the next 10 to 20 years. We will be building robots much simpler than humans but perhaps it’s complex in some ways of insects. Under what condition should we extend our ethical treatment in such animals to those robots? What will it take to convince us that they are alive? Concurrently, with that issue we will also be adopting more and more technology into our bodies. What sorts of technology will be fair and what sorts are unfair?
W: When I was at the MIT lab, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Corgan, Kitsman. I managed to get Corgan to hold my hand. And when I was playing with Kitsman, his current graduate students thanked me for keeping him entertained. I told her a story about how when I was living in an apartment I have packed Furby to one of the boxes. I think the move was already sole to disturb when there’s a tiny voice to start protesting "I’m bored". I started to get this vision of robots who need a less of attention from us. Well programs need to consider how much time people will spend with their robots when creating these interacting machines.
M: I’ve been involved in developing robotic toys------iRobot cooperation. We developed my real baby. It has an emotional system that makes for interesting play experiences for children. The toy responds differently to the same source of stimulus depending on what mode it’s in. It is of course interesting to design such systems as toys. But more interesting question is whether more complex robots will have emotional lives not for their entertainments or play value. But it is a way of providing regulation of their activities. Animals and humans have involved with emotional systems playing just such roles. We may end up building our emotional systems into our robots, so the people can both understand them and influence the robots in the same way they influence each other.
W: You can conclude in your book that technology seems to be heading and the direction of incorporating machine elements senses into human bodies. Do you anticipate that this will happen so gradually? The society, when we really beware that we are returning into cyborgs until the significant percentage of the population, is already part machine.
M: That is exactly what I think will happen, like many technologies, this one is going to sneak upon us. We all know people with hip replacements and we may know people who would have implants. More and more people are going to get implants to handle more and more diseases, ranging from Parkinson to Blindness. And more and more people will have prospected devices to compensate for stroke damage. Before too long, people are going to start having implants to ornament themselves not just repair damage. More and more people will be part flesh and part machine.