Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy

(Hardback)

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Our Robots, Ourselves provides a provocative exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between human and machine. Employing first-hand experience, extensive interviews and the latest research from MIT and elsewhere, David Mindell shows how people operate with and through robots and automated systems and how these interactions will continue to impact our work, experiences, and professional identities in the coming years. A vivid storyteller, Mindell will change the public's misconceptions about the autonomous robot.

Reviews

"Mindell brings an altogether refreshing perspective to a field that can sometimes get lost in the what if.Financial Times

"Neither overly optimistic nor doomy, MIT professor Mindell offers a clear-eyed, reasoned overview of current and potential robotics achievementsand why the machines will always need us."Discover

"Science fiction has become science as we find more and more uses for robots. The MIT professor explores the 'hidden world' of robotics and the controversial relationship between humankind and what it has created."TheSacramento Bee

Mindells ingenious and profoundly original book will enlighten those who prophesy that robots will soon make us redundant, and challenges us all to think more precisely and creatively about how machines can augment human potential.David Autor, Professor of Economics, MIT

"Authoritative.... [Mindell] leaves us with a better understanding of what lies ahead for our daily lives."Kirkus

"An expansively researched and enjoyably accessible treatment of robotic automation, recommended for readers of popular science and those with an interest in artificial intelligence and automation."Library Journal

"A careful, measured extrapolation of contemporary technological trends."Booklist

A lucid, hype-free exploration of how robotic automation really worksin concert with human design, intention, and action.Ian Bogost, Ivan Allen College Distinguished Chair in Media Studies and Professor of Interactive Computing Professor, Scheller School of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology

My thanks to the author for bringing scholarship and sanity to a debate which has run off into a magic la-la land in the popular press.Rodney Brooks, founder Rethink Robotics and iRobot

A must read for those who aspire to be effective contributors to the robotics of our future.David R. Scott, Commander, Apollo 15

Author Bio

David A. Mindell is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing at MIT. He has twenty-five years of experience as an engineer inundersea robotic exploration, as a veteran of more than thirty oceanographic expeditions, and as a pilot and engineer of autonomous aircraft. He is the award-winning author ofIron Coffin- War Technology and Experience Aboard the USS MonitorandDigital Apollo- Human and Machine in Spaceflight. He founded Humatics Corporation, which creates technologies torender autonomy transparent, safe, and trustworthy by transforming how robots and autonomous systems work in human environments.