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  • Relaxing in his office at the Mechanical Engineering Lab in Tsukuba, Japan, Takanori Shibata pats a derivative product from his research: a robot cat named Tama. Shibata is a roboticist who studied with MIT robot guru Rodney Brooks before heading his own lab. Omron, a Japanese engineering company, applied Shibata's discoveries to produce Tama, a mechanical pet with sensors beneath its fur that react to sound and touch.  Omron says it has no plans as of yet to commercialize its robot cats. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 227.
    Japan_JAP_rs_33_qxxs.jpg
  • Christian Ristow's bulldozer-tracked, raptor-clawed robot, called Subjugator, fires its flame thrower during a test run for his apocalyptic show of mechanical mayhem at the Burning Man Festival in Nevada's Black Rock Desert. A former Columbia University architecture student who is now an artist in Los Angeles, Ristow stages mechanical performances in which his constructions fight each other and destroy designated sacrificial targets. With typical bravado, he called his Burning Man show, "The Final Battle of the Twentieth Century Between Man and Machine for Ultimate Supremacy on the Earth." From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 198-199.
    USA_rs_326_qxxs.jpg
  • At the time, the robot Strut, a work in progress, could not walk at all, it could only stand. (It walked sometime later.) But simply getting the robot to stand properly was a major accomplishment. Like a human being, Strut has such complex, interreacting mechanical "musculature" that considerable processing power is needed simply to keep it erect. Osaka (Japan) University Department of Computer-Controlled Mechanical Systems, built by Junji Furusho and research associate Masamichi Sakaguchi. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 48.
    Japan_JAP_rs_267_qxxs.jpg
  • Posing for a portrait at the Osaka  (Japan) University Department of Computer-Controlled Mechanical Systems, Junji Furusho (seated) and research associate Masamichi Sakaguchi show off Strut, their child-sized humanoid robot. At the time, the robot, a work in progress, could not walk at all?it could only stand. (It walked sometime later.) But simply getting the robot to stand properly was a major accomplishment. Like a human being, Strut has such complex, interreacting mechanical "musculature" that considerable processing power is needed simply to keep it erect. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 49.
    Japan_JAP_rs_228_qxxs.jpg
  • Michael Dickinson of the University of California at Berkeley's email address is revealing: FlymanD. Dickinson is a biologist specializing in the study of the aerodynamics of flapping flight. His studies of fruit fly flight are fascinating. In one small room sits a Plexiglas tank filled with two metric tons of mineral oil. Suspended in the oil are giant mechanical models of fruit fly wings: RoboFly.  RoboFly enables Dickinson to study similar forces when the giant wings are flapping in oil. Thousands of tiny bubbles that act as visual tracers are forced into the oil from an air compressor making all the swirling turbulence visible. The device has been used to identify the unusual aerodynamic mechanisms that insects use to fly and maneuver. UC Berkeley, CA, USA.
    Usa_rs_612_xs.jpg
  • Painted pink to give competitors a false sense of its harmlessness, Mouser Catbot 2000 has two deadly sawblades in its nose and tail and a hidden flipper on its back for overturning enemy robots. Built by Californians Fon Davis and April Mousley (left to right), the machine deftly trounced Vlad the Impaler, a larger machine with a hydraulic spike that shot from its snout  at Robot Wars, a two-day festival of mechanical destruction at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 205.
    USA_rs_397_qxxs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction stands with his girlfriend, Jessica, at MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_727_120_xs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_723_120_xs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_705_120_xs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_704_120_xs.jpg
  • In the East Bay suburb of Walnut Creek, near San Francisco, Will Wright and family collectively in their garage preparing their creation for "Robot Wars"(daughter Cassidy 11, nephew Patrick 14, and Will). Later that week, in a battle pit ringed by six-foot sheets of bulletproof glass and a sellout crowd, radio-controlled gladiators battle their robots to the mechanical death. Will Wright developed the Sims software games.
    Usa_rs_713_xs.jpg
  • In the same building as Robert Full at UC Berkeley is Michael Dickinson, whose email address "FlymanD" is revealing. Dickinson is a biologist specializing in the study of the aerodynamics of flapping flight. His bizarre studies of fruit fly flight are fascinating. In one small room sits a Plexiglas tank filled with two metric tons of mineral oil. Suspended in the oil are giant mechanical models of fruit fly wings, RoboFly. Because the tiny movements of the wings of a real fruit fly displace air on such a small scale that the air acts sticky, RoboFly enables Dickinson to study similar forces when the giant wings are flapping in oil.
    Usa_rs_635_xs.jpg
  • Group Leader Jamie Anderson, Mechanical Engineer Peter Kerrebrock, and Electrical Engineer Mark Little (L to R) are shown with the Draper Laboratory VCUUV?Vorticity Control Unmanned Undersea Vehicle. The craft, which cost nearly a million dollars to build, is modeled after a tuna and can swim freely without tethers at a maximum speed of 2.4 knots and can make rapid turns. The Draper Lab VCUUV is based on studies made at MIT by Professor Michael Triantafyllou.
    Usa_rs_601_xs.jpg
  • Baby It's skin partially removed to reveal its inner workings, this prototype robot baby can mimic the facial expressions of a human infant by changing the contours of its lifelike rubber face. Called BIT, for Baby IT, the mechanical tot is yet more proof that much robotic research will see its first commercial application in the toy and entertainment industry. My Real Baby, the market version of BIT, is scheduled to debut in US stores in late 2000; it is a collaboration between Hasbro, the US toy giant, and iRobot, a small company started by MIT researcher Rodney Brooks.  Somerville, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 229.
    USA_rs_72_qxxs.jpg
  • Like a dissected mechanical insect, the hand-sized walking robot Unibug 3.2 (left) reveals its fifty-component construction to the camera's gaze. Designed by Los Alamos , New Mexico, researcher Mark Tilden, Unibug uses simple analog circuits, not the digital electronics that are in most robots, to poke its way around an amazing variety of obstacles. Digital machines must be programmed to account for every variation in their environment, Tilden argues, whereas analog machines can minimally compensate for new and different conditions. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 116.
    USA_rs_487_120_qxxs.jpg
  • The product of a long quest, Robot III, an artificial cockroach built by mechanical engineer Roger Quinn (in blue shirt) and biologist Roy Ritzmann at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, required seven years to construct. (Quinn directs the Biorobotics Lab at the university.) From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 102-103.
    USA_rs_426_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Surrounded by his robot toys and sculptures, Clayton Bailey of Port Costa, California, is living proof that not everyone feels threatened by the prospect of being surrounded by mechanical human beings. In the studio behind his home, Bailey stands among the large robots he has sculpted since retiring as a professor of art from California State University, Hayward. He and his wife, Betty, have collected robot and space toys for the past 30 years. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 230-231.
    USA_rs_3A_120_qxxs.jpg
  • In a demonstration of mechanical dexterity, NASA's robot astronaut uses its hand to open a tether hook of the sort that will be used during the upcoming construction of the International Space Station. Designed to be as human-like as possible, Robonaut's hand has four fingers and an opposable thumb. Robonaut is the early prototype for the robotic astronaut being built at the Johnson Space Center in Texas. Intended to accompany astronauts into space, Robonaut will be especially important in emergencies. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 131 top.
    USA_rs_360_qxxs.jpg
  • Atsuo Takanishi of the Humanoid Research Laboratory, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, conversing with writer Faith D'Aluisio at his university laboratory. One of the leading researchers at Japan's Waseda University's long-term robotics project, mechanical engineer Atsuo Takanishi studied under the late Ichiro Kato, a robotics pioneer, and superb fundraiser, who made the school into the epicenter of the field. Continuing Kato's emphasis on "biomechatronics", replicating the functions of animals with machines, Takanishi now supervises the research group that produced WABIAN-RII (behind him in photograph). From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 18.
    Japan_JAP_rs_287_qxxs.jpg
  • Sitting on a mobile motorized cushion he calls a "vuton," Shigeo Hirose of the Tokyo Institute of Technology surrounds himself with some of the robots he has built in the last two decades. Beside him is the snake-bot ACM R-1, one of his earliest projects. It is made of modules, any number of which can be hooked together to produce a mechanical snake that slowly, jerkily undulates down its path. Hirose, who is primarily funded by industry, hopes to develop commercially useful robots; the snake, he thinks, could be useful for inspecting underground pipes. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 88.
    Japan_JAP_rs_25_qxxs.jpg
  • One of the leading researchers at Japan's Waseda University's long-term robotics project, mechanical engineer Atsuo Takanishi studied under the late Ichiro Kato, a robotics pioneer, and superb fundraiser, who made the school into the epicenter of the field. Continuing Kato's emphasis on "biomechatronics", replicating the functions of animals with machines, Takanishi now supervises the research group that produced WABIAN-RII (behind him in photograph). Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 39.
    Japan_JAP_rs_254_qxxs.jpg
  • Lurching from side to side like an infant figuring out how to walk, the biped-locomotion robot in the Fukuda Lab at Nagoya University tentatively steps forward under the parental supervision of graduate student Kazuo Takahashi. Designed by Toshio Fukuda, a professor of mechanical engineering, the robot is intended to test what Fukuda calls "hierarchical evolutionary algorithms" software that repeats an action, learning from its mistakes until it approaches perfection. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 46-47.
    Japan_JAP_rs_20_qxxs.jpg
  • A bucking mechanical bull is ridden between live traditional bull running in the town of Artajona which is celebrating its feast day with the usual week of festivities. Navarra, Spain.
    SPA_264_xs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_703_120_xs.jpg
  • The M2 humanoid robot, built in the basement of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Leg Lab, took its first tentative steps in the year 2000. Dan Paluska, a mechanical engineering grad student, leads M2's hardware design and construction. The lower torso robot is funded by a DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) program called Tactile Mobile Robotics. DARPA's goal is to replace soldiers and rescue workers in dangerous situations. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA USA.
    Usa_rs_590_120_xs.jpg
  • Ringed by six-foot sheets of bulletproof glass and a sellout crowd, radio-controlled gladiators battle to the mechanical death. At Robot Wars, a two-day-long competition in San Francisco, the crowd roars to the near-constant shriek of metal, the crash of flying parts, and the thunderous beat of techno music. After a series of one-on-one matches, losers and winners alike duke it out in a final death-match called a Melee. California, USA
    Usa_rs_43_xs.jpg
  • Utilizing the research results of University of California biologist Robert Full, Martin Buehler of McGill University and Daniel E. Koditschek of the University of Michigan seized upon when they created RHex (controlled by graduate student Uluç Saranli). Tested in a laboratory (at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor) dominated by an antique poster for Isaac Asimov's book, I, Robot, RHex could become a "companion robot," Buehler says, following its owner around like a friendly mechanical shadow. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 97.
    USA_rs_470_qxxs.jpg
  • After the battle at San Francisco's Robot Wars, robot owners quickly repair what they can in the adjacent pit area . Full of machines being groomed for combat and surgically rescued after it, the pit is a sort of electronic fighter's dressing room and hospital emergency room. Video monitors above the pit give contestants a view of the action. At Robot Wars, a two-day festival of mechanical destruction at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 204 top.
    USA_rs_398_qxxs.jpg
  • Ringed by six-foot sheets of bullet-proof glass and a sellout crowd, radio-controlled gladiators battle to the mechanical death. At Robot Wars, a two-day-long competition in San Francisco, CA the crowd roars to the near-constant shriek of metal, the crash of flying parts, and the thunderous beat of techno music. After a series of one-on-one matches, losers and winners alike duke it out in a final death-match called a Melee. In this Melee, the 13-foot Snake curls to use its drill-bit tail on its hapless victim, a tracked vehicle; meanwhile, the simple yet primitively powerful Frenzy hammers the rolling, wedge-shaped Tazbot. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 202-203.
    USA_rs_395_qxxs.jpg
  • According to Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon University, advanced manufacturing techniques will enable the creation of machines that will far surpass the dexterity of conventional mechanical manipulators and even human hands. Equipped with molecule-sized "nano-fingers," these devices will be able to create any physical structure, atom by atom. Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 33.
    USA_rs_330_qxxs.jpg
  • At Dinamation International's factory in southern California, artists paint the head and sail of Dimetrodon, a reptile that lived before the dinosaurs. The body of this model will be left bare to show the inner mechanical workings. Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
    USA_SCI_DINO_04_xs.jpg
  • At the Tsukuba Mechanical engineering Lab (M.E.L.), Japan, a robotic hand with tactile sensors gently grips an orange. The robotic hand is equipped with tactile sensors in the finger tips to transmit a signal back to the operator. Designed by Hitoshi Maekawa Ph.D. a researcher in the cybernetics division of the Department of Robotics of Tuskuba MEL. Over the last 8 years, Maekawa has developed a robotic hand with tactile sensors that can hold items in its fingertips and compensate for slippage. His research is into dynamic grasping force control for a multi-fingered hand. (Paper on project was presented at the IEEE International Conference On Robotics and Automation, 1996. Work is ongoing).
    Japan_Jap_rs_32A_120_xs.jpg
  • A work in progress, this still-unnamed face robot can open its eyes and smile. In the future, says its designer, Hidetoshi Akasawa, a mechanical engineering student working on a master's at the Science University of Tokyo, Japan,  it will be able to recognize and react to human facial expressions. This third-generation robot will greet smiles with smiles, frowns with frowns, mixing and matching six basic emotions in a real-time interaction that Hara calls "active human interface." From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 72.
    Japan_JAP_rs_262_qxxs.jpg
  • The novelty of owning Japan's first robot dog is not enough to keep Mitsuhiko Nozue's son Masahiko from switching his attention to a Pokemon video game. When abandoned by its owner, AIBO, Sony's new, limited-edition mechanical pet, plays with the ball by itself, delighting Mitsuhiko. The man runs for the 150-page manual that came with the robot pet when AIBO displays any new trick, sometimes leaving Mitsuhiko scratching his head; a puzzlement all too familiar from other encounters with digital gizmos. The latest word is that the Nozue family has named their AIBO Narubo. Yokohama, Japan . From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 226.
    Japan_JAP_rs_252_qxxs.jpg
  • Deftly opening a door, the Honda P3 walks its assigned path at the Honda Research Center, outside Tokyo, Japan. The product of a costly decade-long effort, the Honda robotic project was only released from its shroud of corporate secrecy in 1996. In a carefully choreographed performance, P3 walks a line, opens a door, turns a corner, and, after a safety chain is attached, climbs a flight of stairs. Despite its mechanical sophistication, it can't respond to its environment. If people were to step in its way, the burly robot would knock them down without noticing them. Ultimately, of course, Honda researchers hope to change that. But, in what seems an attempt to hedge the company's bet, P3 senior engineer Masato Hirose is also working on sending the robot to places where it cannot possibly injure anyone. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 42.
    Japan_JAP_rs_16_qxxs.jpg
  • Fearsome sawblades spinning, Pretty Hate Machine menaces the competition at Robot Wars, a two-day festival of mechanical destruction at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. Organized by Marc Thorpe, a former Industrial Light and Magic model builder, the cybernetic slugfest spawned a six-week BBC-TV series and many similar events. Pretty Hate Machine is a middleweight-class machine; two wheelchair motors power a Rube Goldberg assembly of rods, rubber belts and saw blades. A real crowd-pleaser, Pretty Hate Machine was one of the few walking robots in a competition dominated by wheeled or tracked machines. California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 200-201.
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  • Researchers adjust the mechanism of WE-3RIII, Waseda University's head robot, after it accidentally whiplashed into its own wires. In a situation all too familiar to robotics researchers, Atsuo Takanishi ( hand on right) is trying to make his creation work. His research team's robot, WE-3RIII (Waseda Eye Number 3 Refined Version III) can follow a light with its digital-camera eyes, moving its head if needed. In the laboratory the robot worked perfectly, its movements almost disconcertingly lifelike. But while being installed at a robot exhibit in Tokyo, WE-3RIII inexplicably and violently threw back its head, tearing apart its own wiring. Now Takanishi and one of his students (hand on left) are puzzling over the problem and will solve it only in the early hours of the morning before the exhibit opened. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 233.
    Japan_JAP_rs_59_qxxs.jpg
  • Scientist John Feddema demonstrates the assembly of MEMS parts (here, tiny gears the diameter of a human hair, seen through a microscope and viewed via the computer monitor image above John's head), ((MEMS stands for Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems)). The parts could be used for weapons components seen here at the Micro-Manipulation Lab, Sandia National Lab, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
    Usa_rs_13_xs.jpg
  • With its carapace not yet built, the mechanism inside the head of Cog is revealed against a photographer's lights. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, MA. So much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 59.
    USA_rs_348_qxxs.jpg
  • DB gazes intently at the camera by means of two pairs of lenses in each "eye." In a configuration increasingly common in humanoid robots, one lens in each pair sharply focuses on the center of the visual field while the other gives a broader perspective. These two points of view, surprisingly, mimic the human eye, which seamlessly blends together information from the fovea centralis, a small area of precise focus in the center of the retina, and the parafovea, a larger, but much less acute area surrounding the fovea. Similarly, DB has a vestibular system in its ears, vestibular systems being the inner-ear mechanisms that people use to balance themselves.  The DB project is funded by the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) Humanoid Project and led by independent researcher Mitsuo Kawato. Based at a research facility 30 miles outside of Kyoto, Japan.
    Japan_JAP_rs_235_qxxs.jpg
  • Kismet is a complex autonomous robot developed by Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, at the time of this image a doctoral studies student at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab under the direction of Rod Brooks. Breazeal's immediate goal for Kismet is to replicate and possibly recognize human emotional states as exhibited in facial expressions. Breazeal has located the most important variables in human facial expressions and has mechanically transferred these points of expression to a robotic face. Kismet's eyelids, eyebrows, ears, mouth, and lips are all able to move independently to generate different expressions of emotional states.
    Usa_rs_711_xs.jpg
  • Graduate student Dan Paluska adjusts mechanisms of the lower torso and extremity robot, called M2. The robot is funded by a DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) program called Tactile Mobile Robotics. DARPA's goal is to replace soldiers and rescue workers in dangerous situations. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rs_591_120_xs.jpg
  • Spread across a backlit surface like a Kandinsky painting, the disassembled Kismet head reveals the mechanisms (an updated second-generation version with a neck that "cranes") that allow it to manipulate its cartoonish lips, eyes, and ears into expressions that seem startlingly human. This next generation Kismet head is called K2. Chris Morse spent two hours taking it apart for us. Cynthia Breazeal developed Kismet at MIT in Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page  67.
    USA_rs_425_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_44_qxxs.jpg
  • Dismissing the fears that robots will come to dominate their creators, Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon argues that humans will literally become robots, "uploading" their consciousness and memories into their computers. Photographed at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 33.
    USA_rs_431_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_42_nxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_38_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_37_nxs.jpg
  • Ten years and tens of millions of dollars in the making, the Honda P3 strides down its course at the car company's secret research facility on the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan. The product of a costly decade-long effort, the Honda robotic project was only released from its shroud of corporate secrecy in 1996. In a carefully choreographed performance, P3 walks a line, opens a door, turns a corner, and, after a safety chain is attached, climbs a flight of stairs. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 34-35.
    Japan_JAP_rs_15_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_43_qxxs.jpg
  • Flanked by the animatronic robots created in his workshops, Steve Jacobsen, an engineering professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, may be the world's most entrepreneurial roboticist-he's spun off four companies from his research and discoveries. Perhaps the most important product he makes is the Utah Artificial Arm (above Jacobsen's head), a high-tech prosthetic hand used by thousands of amputees around the world. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 216-217.
    USA_rs_427_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_41_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_40_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_39_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_36_qxxs.jpg
  • Surrounded by his plans and sketches, designer Tatsuya Matsui (seated) contemplates the next phase in the evolution of SIG, the robot under development by Hiroaki Kitano (standing). Kitano, a senior researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc. and director of this government-funded project, wants to endow SIG with sufficient eyesight, hearing, and processing power to follow instructions given by several people in a crowd. The goal is ambitious, but Kitano is well-placed to achieve it. In 1997, he created the now-famous RoboCup, in which robot teams from around the world meet every year to play soccer in an indoor arena. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 83.
    Japan_JAP_rs_242_qxxs.jpg
  • In a situation all too familiar to robotics researchers, Atsuo Takanishi (on right) is trying to make his creation work. His research team's robot, WE-3RIII (Waseda Eye Number 3 Refined Version III) can follow a light with its digital-camera eyes, moving its head if needed. In the laboratory the robot worked perfectly, its movements almost disconcertingly lifelike. But while being installed at a robot exhibit in Tokyo, WE-3RIII inexplicably and violently threw back its head, tearing apart its own wiring. Now Takanishi and one of his students are puzzling over the problem and will solve it only in the early hours of the morning before the exhibit opened. Japan.From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 40-41..
    Japan_JAP_rs_12_qxxs.jpg
  • Virtual reality in undersea exploration: bench testing of an undersea tele-robotic robot arm, being developed for the U.S. Navy by the Centre for Engineering Design at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. The functions of this robot are the performance of complex underwater tasks by remote manipulation from the surface. Underwater video cameras & other imaging systems relay information to a computer that produces a 3-D virtual image of the seabed. The operator is linked to this world through a headset equipped with 3-D goggles, & spatial sensor, and data gloves or other clothing that relay precision movements back through the computer to tools on the robot's limbs. (1990)
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  • Virtual reality in undersea exploration: bench testing of an undersea tele-robotic robot arm, being developed for the U.S. Navy by the Center for Engineering Design at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. The functions of this robot are the performance of complex underwater tasks by remote manipulation from the surface. Underwater video cameras & other imaging systems relay information to a computer that produces a 3-D virtual image of the seabed. The operator is linked to this world through a headset equipped with 3-D goggles, & spatial sensor, and data gloves or other clothing that relay precision movements back through the computer to tools on the robot's limbs. (1990)
    USA_SCI_VR_39_xs.jpg
  • Shelves stacked with My Real Baby in the development labs at the Somerville, Massachusetts firm iRobot. The doll is a collaboration between iRobot and toy giant Hasbro. My Real Baby has a complex innerworkings benteath its soft skin including gears, servos, and an 8-bit processor, all to give the robotic doll a host of expressions and movement.
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  • Harold Cohen, former director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), is the author of the celebrated AARON program, an ongoing research effort in autonomous machine (art making) intelligence. Cohen is seen looking at his creation, a robot "artist" that painted the picture in the background. California, USA
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  • In Death Valley, California, the team responsible for a Russian Mars Rover 'Marsokhod' tests its vehicle to see how it will handle its maneuvering along the similar rocky terrain. The Planetary Society sponsored the test. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • MODEL RELEASED. Kismet robot interacting with a mirror held by researcher Cynthia Breazeal. Kismet is a robot that responds with facial expressions to her actions. It has been developed for the study of action recognition and learning, particularly in children. Kismet has several moods, which it displays as expressions on its face. It responds to visual stimuli like a baby. When there are no stimuli, it shows a sad expression. When paid attention to, as here, Kismet looks interested. Like a child, Kismet responds best to bright colours and moderate movements. Photographed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA.
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  • After cutting off half the face of BIT, a prototype robotic doll, photographer Peter Menzel is himself photographed  by assistant Alex Wright at the headquarters of the toy's designer, iRobot of Somerville, Massachusetts. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 19.
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  • In a photo-illustration, SARCOS, an animatronic robot built by the SARCOS Research Corp., a Salt Lake City, UT, robotics company, appears to peer at the seven-card-stud hand of Scott Reynolds (at right), one of the engineers responsible for creating him (with technicians Doren Prue, center, and Charles Ledger). From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 218-219.
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  • The ghoulish host for Secrets of the Crypt Keeper's Haunted House, a Saturday-morning television show for kids, is an animatronic; that is, lifelike electronic-robot. Built by AVG, of Chatsworth, California, the Crypt Keeper can show almost every human expression, although it must first be programmed to do so. Larger gestures of head and hand are created not by programming, but by electronically linking the robotic figure to an actor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 207.
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  • The most sophisticated machines don't necessarily triumph in the violent gladiatorial battles at San Francisco's Robot Wars, as shown when Tazbot (with turret), a simple, remote-controlled vehicle, forces a much more sophisticated, autonomously moving opponent to self-destruct. San Francisco, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 204 bottom.
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  • Eric Hvinden puts sound onto a Dinamation International Triceratops at the company's factory near Los Angeles, California. Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
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  • Snarling at the rush-hour traffic, this new animatronic; that is, lifelike and electronic replica of an Allosaurus is returning from the paint shop to the Dinamation factory in Orange County, California. Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
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  • In a spanking new, richly-appointed research center above a busy shopping street in Tokyo's stylish Harajuku district, Hiroaki Kitano shows off his robot soccer team. In addition to Kitano's humanoid-robot work at Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project, a five-year, government-funded ERATO project, Kitano is the founder and chair of Robot World Cup Soccer (RoboCup), an annual soccer competition for robots. There are four classes of contestants: small, medium, simulated, and dog (using Sony's programmable robot dogs). Kitano's small-class RoboCup team consists of five autonomous robots, which kick a golf ball around a field about the size of a ping-pong table. An overhead video camera feeds information about the location of the players to remote computers, which use the data to control the robots' offensive and defensive moves. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 213 top.
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  • Many Japanese roboticists were inspired as a child by Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), a popular Japanese cartoon about a futuristic robot boy who helps human beings (here, it is a 15-centimeter Astro Boy action figure). Astro Boy, drawn in the 1950's, will soon be the star of a major motion picture. In the story line, his birthdate is in April of 2003. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 197.
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  • Sleek and elegant, the head of this unfinished robot was constructed by the Symbiotic Intelligence Group of the Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project. It is funded by an ERATO grant from the Japan Science and Technology Corporation, a branch of the Science and Technology Agency of the Japanese government. SIG, as this robot is named, has a white outside shell designed by a project artist, group leader Hiroaki Kitano is a firm believer in the importance of aesthetics. Tokyo, Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 80-81.
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  • By creating a simulacrum of the human eye, the DB project leader and biophysicist Mitsuo Kawato hopes to learn more about human vision. The DB project is funded by the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) Humanoid Project and led by independent researcher Mitsuo Kawato. Based at a research facility 30 miles outside of Kyoto, Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 55.
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  • Colin Angle gives life to Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Cynthia Ferrell soldering at the M.I.T., Insect Robot Lab, Cambridge, MA. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Chris Foley seen here with, Herbert, a robot that picks up empty soda cans, Insect Robot Lab, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA
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  • Cynthia Ferrell (Breazeal) seemingly gives life to the robot Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA.
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  • For a photo-illustration, graduate student Josh Davis (underwater, in a wet-suit) helps the RoboPike breach out of the water in order to show how well the robotic fish might be able to swim one day. The idea for the image of the RoboPike breaching came from the head of Ocean Engineering, Professor Triantafyllou, whose dream it is for a robotic fish to swim well enough to be able to jump out of the water Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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  • Professor Robert J. Full's Poly-PEDAL Lab at UC Berkeley has been working with roboticists for years, supplying them with information on small animal locomotion that is used to conStruct innovative robots. Recently, the Lab has been working with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), testing and evaluating artificial muscles. Dr. Kenneth Meijer (from Holland) compares and measures a Stanford Artificial Muscle with a natural one from the leg of the Death Head Cockroach. After cooling the cockroach and exposing leg extensor muscle number 179, an electrode is suctioned into the muscle to simulate the nerve-to-muscle connection. Published in Stern Magazine, February 11th, 2000.
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  • In Palo Alto, CA Gavin Miller and his wife Nancy test his robotic snake in the driveway of their home. Miller builds the snakes in his garage. Gavin's dog barks a the snake to the amusement of his wife, Nancy.
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  • Professor Ron Fearing and his students at the University of California at Berkeley are using Dickinson's information to build a micromechanical fly. In the photo a 30% larger than final size scale mockup of the Micromechanical Flying Insect (MFI) is compared with its inspiration, the blow fly Calliphora erythrocephala. Researchers expect the stainless steel MFI to be flying in the lab by 2003. The main problem to be overcome in such a small device is an adequate power supply.
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  • To study the flight control behavior of fruit flies, a tiny fly is glued to a probe positioned in an electronic arena of hundreds of flashing LEDs that can also measure its wing motion and flight forces. By altering its wing motion, the fly itself can change the display of the moving electronic panorama, tricking the fly into "thinking" it is really flying through the air. The amplified humming of the fruit fly as it buzzes through its imaginary flight surrounded by computers in the darkened lab is quite bizarre. UC Berkeley, CA, USA.
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  • Here COG,(short for cognitive) is seen using a slinky toy. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, Mass. Although some might be discouraged by the disparity between the enormous amount of thought and labor that went into it and the apparently meager results (simulating the intelligence of a six month old baby), Brooks draws a different conclusion. That so much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. Robo sapiens page 59
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  • In this photo-illustration, graduate student Josh Davis (underwater, in a wet-suit) helps the RoboPike breach out of the water in order to show how well the robotic fish might be able to swim one day. The idea for the image of the RoboPike breaching came from the head of Ocean Engineering, Professor Triantafyllou, whose dream it is for a robotic fish to swim well enough to be able to jump out of the water.
    Usa_rs_596_120_xs.jpg
  • A protoype of the iRobot, a multi-purpose, web-controllable home robot built by the iRobot company. Following in the footsteps of other home robots like Sony's Aibo, iRobot Corporation of Somerville, Massachusetts has included more advanced features in the iRobot such as programmability, wireless Internet connectivity, and higher mobility. The robot is intended to bring tele-presence into the home with its cameras, microphones, mobility, Internet connection, and control-ability.
    Usa_rs_593_120_xs.jpg
  • U.C. Berkeley graduate student Eric Paulos describes his Personal Roving Presence (PRoP) as "a simple, inexpensive, Internet-controlled, untethered tele-robot that strives to provide the sensation of tele-embodiment in a remote real space." In other words, Paulos is trying to build a kind of avatar people could dispatch it to distant places to represent themselves in, say, business meetings. California, USA
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  • Austin Richards of Santa Barbara, CA, is zapped by his homemade Tesla Coil. Richards wears a homemade robot outfit with a birdcage covering his head. The electrical "lightning" bolts his Tesla coil zaps him with do not do any harm because he is surrounded by metal that acts a Faraday cage, harmlessly channeling the charges to the ground and protecting his body from shocks. Richards performs these stunts for trade shows and parties. Here he is doing this for a block party near Santa Barbara. California, USA
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  • Here COG,(short for cognitive) is seen using a slinky toy. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, Mass. Although some might be discouraged by the disparity between the enormous amount of thought and labor that went into it and the apparently meager results (simulating the intelligence of a six month old baby), Brooks draws a different conclusion. That so much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. Robo sapiens page 59
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  • Burying his face in a 3-D viewing system, Volkmar Falk of the Leipzig Herzzentrum (Germany's most important cardiac center) explores the chest cavity of a cadaver with the da Vinci robotic surgical system. Thomas Krummel (standing), chief of surgery at Stanford University's teaching hospital, observes the procedure on a monitor displaying images from a pair of tiny cameras in one of the three "ports" Falk has cut into the cadaver. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 176.
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  • Robonaut, with an acrylic head, holds a drill with socket attachment at the Johnson Space Center, Houston. That NASA's teleoperated humanoid-type robot, called Robonaut, has no legs is by design, because in space, says project leader Robert Ambrose, an astronaut's legs can be a big impediment to fulfilling the mission of a spacewalk. The latest version of Robonaut has two arms, a Kevlar and nylon suit, updated stereo eyes, and is getting heat sensing capability. Possibly the most significant change is the move from total teleoperation to some level of autonomy.
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  • Anita Flynn with vintage robot prototype "Gnat" at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Flynn was an Insect Lab scientist who liked to dream up possible jobs for tiny, cheap, throwaway robots.  She suggested that a gnat could crawl along an underground electrical cable until it finds a break, bridge the gap, and stay there as a permanent repair. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Walking robot. Blur-flash image of Pinky, a walking robot prototype, being physically supported by researcher Dan Paluska at the Leg Lab. at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Pinky is a next generation walking robot that, unlike previous generations, can walk untethered and unsupported at normal human pace. Pinky was built to help understand the dynamics of the human stride. Photographed in Cambridge, USA
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  • "Baby It" is the prototype for My Real Baby, the most sophisticated robot doll yet made. According to a press release, it is only the "first born" in a series of dolls created from the union of its parent companies, toy giant Hasbro and iRobot, a small Massachusetts robotics firm. Somerville, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 12-13.
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  • A "smart" pallet that can move in any direction, OmniMate was designed by Johann Borenstein, a research scientists at the University of Michigan. Like the HelpMate hospital delivery robot, OmniMate sits on robotic platforms called LabMates. Although earlier robot pallets had to move along cables buried in the floor, OmniMate can track its own location by measuring its movements precisely. Borenstein is in the process of putting his robot on the market. At the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 189.
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  • Holding what will become a robot leg, Stanford graduate student Jonathan Clark demonstrates the structure's resilience. Using shape deposition molds like the one below Clark's hand, Cutkosky and his students are now embedding electronic parts into molded plastic to create structures with the flexibility of living tissue. Stanford, CA.  From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 99 bottom.
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  • Force-feedback is widely used in data gloves, which send hand movements to grasping machines. The robot hand, which was built by the students in Mark Cutkosky's Stanford lab, transmits the "feel" of the blocks between its pincers, giving operators a sense of how hard they are gripping. Stanford, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 137 bottom.
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  • Rather than building an exact metal and plastic copy of an insect's bones and muscles, Stanford engineer Mark Cutkosky and his students Sean Bailey and Jorge Cham (Cutkosky at left) stripped a cockroach to its essence. The Mini-sprawl has padded feet, with springy couplings and pneumatic pistons that yank the legs up and down. Like a real roach, the robot skitters forward as each set of legs touches the surface. The next step: creating a robot that can turn and vary its speed. Stanford, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 99 top.
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  • In a simulated bedroom complete with stuffed animals, tossed bedclothes, and a sleeping dummy victim, Robin R. Murphy of the University of South Florida keeps tabs on her marsupial robot; or, rather, robots. Developed to help search-and-rescue teams, the robots will work as a team. The larger "mother" is designed to roll into a disaster site. When it can go no farther, several "daughter" robots will emerge, marsupial fashion, from a cavity in its chest. The daughter robots will crawl on highly mobile tracks to look for survivors, feeding the mother robot images of what they see. Although the project is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Murphy's budget is hardly overwhelming. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 154-155.
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  • Rodney Brooks of MIT (with the latest incarnation of Cog, his humanoid robot) believes it likely that robots can achieve humanlike intelligence and consciousness. But when that happens, he says, it will be unethical to have them work for us; we shouldn't treat our creations as our slaves. I think we're a long way from having to face it, but the landscape is going to be so unimaginable that it's hard to say sensible things." MIT, Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 25.
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  • Although MIT roboticist Rodney Brooks has worked in robotics since the late 1970s, he first attracted widespread attention when he began building robot insects, in the 1980s. (He was one of the subjects of Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, a documentary film.) From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 61.
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