Rating: 
Summary: Visionary Computer Science (robotics) Futures
Review: Aimed at anyone interested in possible society, technology (especially robotics) and economics in the next century (?all of us), 'Robot' provides an enjoyable and sometimes journalistic-style computer-science viewpoint.The often globally & historically-robust chapters span: Escape Velocity (weak introduction); Caution Robot Vehicle (better history of robotics/vision); Power & Presence (better still recent state-of-art); Universal Robots (basic future robotics brainstorm including wireless networking via the Internet); The Age of Robots (basic society & markets brainstorm); The Age of Mind; and Mind Fire. I enjoyed the contemporary exploration of Turing's rebuttals to objections against thinking machines- theological, "heads in sand", mathematical, consciousness, disabilities, Lady Lovelace's, continuity, informality to behavior, and extrasensory perception. Strengths include: the useful global historical perspective (jumping from Babbage, to Turing, to Asimov, and onwards); the US context on 70s onwards university robotics (vision) research; depth of computer science content; good charts in chapter 3; and an entertaining view of future possibilities. Weaknesses include: errors & seeming lack of knowledge about industrial robotics (including mystifying them as for experts when standard simple undergraduate engineering tools in 1980s industry); sometimes a "technological solution-first" rather than "appropriate-problem to solve" bias; a need for better use of tables for content- e.g. AI (including missed useful Qualitative Process Theory), adaptive software tools, cybernetics, control paradigms, taxonomy of robotics etc.. (save perhaps 25% of words); and a need for a more structured view of uses of robotics in society & markets (perhaps a rich-text /UML/whatever systems diagram with needs, resources, processes etc..). Complimentary titles include Groover's 1986 robotics classic "Industrial Robotics : Technology, Programming, and Applications" (ISBN: 007024989X ); as well as numerous Open University (largest distance university in the World) advanced manufacturing course texts addressing robotics in a more structured and robustly applied manner. Overall a timely, and interesting look at the last 3 decades of Carnegie-Mellon University's (and US) computer-science robotics research, with one set of intriguing possible futures in this fascinating field.
Rating: 
Summary: All your base are belong to us
Review: Aimed at anyone interested in possible society, technology (especially robotics) and economics in the next century (?all of us), `Robot' provides an enjoyable and sometimes journalistic-style computer-science viewpoint. The often globally & historically-robust chapters span: Escape Velocity (weak introduction); Caution Robot Vehicle (better history of robotics/vision); Power & Presence (better still recent state-of-art); Universal Robots (basic future robotics brainstorm including wireless networking via the Internet); The Age of Robots (basic society & markets brainstorm); The Age of Mind; and Mind Fire. I enjoyed the contemporary exploration of Turing's rebuttals to objections against thinking machines- theological, "heads in sand", mathematical, consciousness, disabilities, Lady Lovelace's, continuity, informality to behavior, and extrasensory perception. Strengths include: the useful global historical perspective (jumping from Babbage, to Turing, to Asimov, and onwards); the US context on 70s onwards university robotics (vision) research; depth of computer science content; good charts in chapter 3; and an entertaining view of future possibilities. Weaknesses include: errors & seeming lack of knowledge about industrial robotics (including mystifying them as for experts when standard simple undergraduate engineering tools in 1980s industry); sometimes a "technological solution-first" rather than "appropriate-problem to solve" bias; a need for better use of tables for content- e.g. AI (including missed useful Qualitative Process Theory), adaptive software tools, cybernetics, control paradigms, taxonomy of robotics etc.. (save perhaps 25% of words); and a need for a more structured view of uses of robotics in society & markets (perhaps a rich-text /UML/whatever systems diagram with needs, resources, processes etc..). Complimentary titles include Groover's 1986 robotics classic "Industrial Robotics : Technology, Programming, and Applications" (ISBN: 007024989X ); as well as numerous Open University (largest distance university in the World) advanced manufacturing course texts addressing robotics in a more structured and robustly applied manner. Overall a timely, and interesting look at the last 3 decades of Carnegie-Mellon University's (and US) computer-science robotics research, with one set of intriguing possible futures in this fascinating field.
Rating: 
Summary: Robots: 1 Humans: 0
Review: Are you concerned that the robots of the near future will become so astoundingly hyperintelligent that they will be driven to consume humanity and the Earth like so many Doritos? Hans Moravec is. What's more, he's got the answer: Give up and accept your fate. Maybe a robot will simulate you in its vast, vast superbrain for kicks. Is that so bad? I really expected more from Hans -- someone who's spent his life as a top researcher in the AI community. His ideas (like the space-dwelling formerly-human robobeasts he calls Exes) are charitably described as "childlike", with all the good and bad that entails. They are unique, fanciful, vibrant and intense; they are also unrealistic, self-indulgent, ethically undeveloped, and grounded more in emotion than fact. To say it more simply: They are stories. And they say a lot more about Hans Moravec than they do about the science of Artificial Intelligence. In his favor, Moravec's stories are morbidly fascinating. It's rare that you find someone so disconnected from the world at large that he can talk about its total annihilation by robots with enthusiastic boosterism! Ultimately, however, his greatest flaws lie in the chain of reasoning that sets up his apocalyptic fantasy. Q: How will computers *become* superintelligent? A: Who knows? They just will. People will buy them that way. Q: Won't people resent being ousted from their jobs by robots? A: People like leisure time, don't they? They'll have more! Q: What if there are limits to general intelligence? Hey, what is intelligence, anyway? A: I don't know, but I'm sure the robots will tell us. Read it in the bookstore. Better yet, read Minsky's excellent "Society of Mind". You can order it now, and you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Speculations On Mankind's Future
Review: Fascinating predictions on the possible course of human and machine evolution by one of the world's foremost experts in the field. Whether or not one agrees with Moravec and shares (or does not share) his optimism is beside the point. He definitely sparks discussion! Myself, I just remember that it is extremely difficult to predict the future beyond the short term and yet...
Rating: 
Summary: Awful
Review: Hans Moravec apparently knows a lot about creating robots, and I wish him well in that endeavor. But the sort of speculation in this book by necessity calls upon a broad understanding of all areas of human knowledge, and his understanding of people is quite poor. This work is ultimately a failure, because it is based on many logical and factual errors. Some examples: Moravec argues that consciousness should not be that hard to developed in robots, in part because consciousness in humans is only a string of physical sensations. Well, Hans, David Hume made this same argument two hundred years ago in a much more convincing way than you just did, and I still don't buy it. The last 200 years of philosophy has wrestled with the question of the existence of the transcendent ego, and if Moravec's robot project hangs on its resolution, I don't think we'll be seeing robots any time soon. Moravec also tries to assuage our fears of being replaced by robots by arguing that, by the force of evolution, we're really better suited to a life of leisure, where we hunt and fish and don't use our minds too much. So we'll like sitting around while the robots work away at the economy that supports us, while Social Security absorbs 99% of economic output and we collect the dole. He opines that countries that never moved away from their tribal origins, like Saudi Arabia, will have the easiest transition to this new world. (!) Well, if September 11th hasn't put the lie to that, I'm not sure what would. Unless you believe that the only thing that people strive for, the only thing that motivates them to take actions, is a desire for material comforts, Moravec's prediction is clearly wrong. Humans will continue to want to lead lives that give them purpose and direction, and the most obvious example of this is religion. In Moravec's desire to make robots people, it seems he has made people robots.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating scientific read!
Review: Hans Moravec does an outstanding job of waking society up to a very real potential road that humans may one day soon take; "mechanization". Many cringe at the thought of using computers to do anything but send e-mail or surf the net. However, after reading this, I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that computers won't continue to bleed closer and closer into our personal lives until one day there may actually be some kind of union between the two. And that brings me to my principal beef with this book. Perhaps H. Moravec has been working at arms length building robots for too long, because to me (a younger tech-savvy reader), if there ever is a "union" between man and machine, it won't be so much a union, but an "augmentation" of humanity. I will never become "part computer", but may use a computer to augment my life (enhanced bio-capability, enhanced intelligence, perhaps even immortality). The "us AND them" contrast Robot seems to paint never sat well with me. Anyway, an informative and entertaining read. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating scientific read!
Review: Hans Moravec does an outstanding job of waking society up to a very real potential road that humans may one day soon take; "mechanization". Many cringe at the thought of using computers to do anything but send e-mail or surf the net. However, after reading this, I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that computers won't continue to bleed closer and closer into our personal lives until one day there may actually be some kind of union between the two. And that brings me to my principal beef with this book. Perhaps H. Moravec has been working at arms length building robots for too long, because to me (a younger tech-savvy reader), if there ever is a "union" between man and machine, it won't be so much a union, but an "augmentation" of humanity. I will never become "part computer", but may use a computer to augment my life (enhanced bio-capability, enhanced intelligence, perhaps even immortality). The "us AND them" contrast Robot seems to paint never sat well with me. Anyway, an informative and entertaining read. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating but troubling future
Review: Hans Moravec is both a practical robotics engineer and a transcendent dreamer. Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind is a work of pessimism delivered by an optimist. It's complex, compelling, naïve and frightening. Is this the world we're building for our children? I mean human children, not mind children. Robot begins with a good overview of robotics, outlining the work of cyber-pioneers such as Alan Turing, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky; then progressing into the late nineties. Moravec is a first-class robotics scientist and engineer, explaining technical issues and solutions in a concise, interesting manner. Good stuff, if you're interested in understanding robotics (why else would you be reading this book?). Moravec then projects the growth of robotics and artificial intelligence employing a model similar to that of Ray Kurzweil in The Age of Spiritual Machines. Both men base this growth on the exponentially increasing power of inexpensive computers, which they believe will match the computing power of the human mind by approximately 2020. They both present strong arguments that the human mind is fundamentally a complex machine; therefore, it's not a stretch to believe an equally complex mind can be developed in silicon. Moravec then provides his assessment of robot capabilities for each decade of the twenty-first century. It's fascinating and not unreasonable. Okay, we all know the future is not going to look like Star Trek, but Moravec's vision for the coming centuries is just too unbelievable: robot corporations in outer space, some planet-sized, virtually all of humanity living on a dole provided by taxing robot corporations, "execs" with almost supernatural powers ... you get the idea. Who knows - maybe he will be right - but these speculations don't fit well with the practical, science-based tone of the bulk of the material. Nevertheless, this is an excellent work if you enjoy thinking about the near-future. Read Kurzweil and Moravec back to back - throw in Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks - and you'll have a persuasive picture of what the next few decades may hold.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating but troubling future
Review: Hans Moravec is both a practical robotics engineer and a transcendent dreamer. Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind is a work of pessimism delivered by an optimist. It's complex, compelling, naïve and frightening. Is this the world we're building for our children? I mean human children, not mind children. Robot begins with a good overview of robotics, outlining the work of cyber-pioneers such as Alan Turing, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky; then progressing into the late nineties. Moravec is a first-class robotics scientist and engineer, explaining technical issues and solutions in a concise, interesting manner. Good stuff, if you're interested in understanding robotics (why else would you be reading this book?). Moravec then projects the growth of robotics and artificial intelligence employing a model similar to that of Ray Kurzweil in The Age of Spiritual Machines. Both men base this growth on the exponentially increasing power of inexpensive computers, which they believe will match the computing power of the human mind by approximately 2020. They both present strong arguments that the human mind is fundamentally a complex machine; therefore, it's not a stretch to believe an equally complex mind can be developed in silicon. Moravec then provides his assessment of robot capabilities for each decade of the twenty-first century. It's fascinating and not unreasonable. Okay, we all know the future is not going to look like Star Trek, but Moravec's vision for the coming centuries is just too unbelievable: robot corporations in outer space, some planet-sized, virtually all of humanity living on a dole provided by taxing robot corporations, "execs" with almost supernatural powers ... you get the idea. Who knows - maybe he will be right - but these speculations don't fit well with the practical, science-based tone of the bulk of the material. Nevertheless, this is an excellent work if you enjoy thinking about the near-future. Read Kurzweil and Moravec back to back - throw in Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks - and you'll have a persuasive picture of what the next few decades may hold.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating but troubling future
Review: Hans Moravec is both a practical robotics engineer and a transcendent dreamer. Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind is a work of pessimism delivered by an optimist. It's complex, compelling, naïve and frightening. Is this the world we're building for our children? I mean human children, not mind children. Robot begins with a good overview of robotics, outlining the work of cyber-pioneers such as Alan Turing, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky; then progressing into the late nineties. Moravec is a first-class robotics scientist and engineer, explaining technical issues and solutions in a concise, interesting manner. Good stuff, if you're interested in understanding robotics (why else would you be reading this book?). Moravec then projects the growth of robotics and artificial intelligence employing a model similar to that of Ray Kurzweil in The Age of Spiritual Machines. Both men base this growth on the exponentially increasing power of inexpensive computers, which they believe will match the computing power of the human mind by approximately 2020. They both present strong arguments that the human mind is fundamentally a complex machine; therefore, it's not a stretch to believe an equally complex mind can be developed in silicon. Moravec then provides his assessment of robot capabilities for each decade of the twenty-first century. It's fascinating and not unreasonable. Okay, we all know the future is not going to look like Star Trek, but Moravec's vision for the coming centuries is just too unbelievable: robot corporations in outer space, some planet-sized, virtually all of humanity living on a dole provided by taxing robot corporations, "execs" with almost supernatural powers ... you get the idea. Who knows - maybe he will be right - but these speculations don't fit well with the practical, science-based tone of the bulk of the material. Nevertheless, this is an excellent work if you enjoy thinking about the near-future. Read Kurzweil and Moravec back to back - throw in Flesh and Machines by Rodney Brooks - and you'll have a persuasive picture of what the next few decades may hold.
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