Synopsis:
The preface of this book introduces modern robotics and how it is influenced by science fiction. It shows how robots are becoming more and more aware of their surroundings and challenges the reader to imagine a world where robots live among us.
Definitions:
Modern Robotics: anything can perceive the world, make sense of its surroundings, then act to push back on the world and make change.
Questions:
My overall recurring question in this class is again challenged with this reading. The author speaks of multidisciplinary robotics and includes examples of ‘robots’ which carry out very specific tasks. From his description it seems like lifelike features (humanistic or animal-like) are not needed for a machine to be considered a robot.
How will robotics change how we communicate? It will become significantly more difficult to create common ground because while an individual will have a limited scope of something, a robot can have all the information in the world about it but still may not be able to have the shared understanding that you may have wit another human about something.
Just a general question, what will the world look like when robots live among us. If they develop humanoid for how will this affect our perception of reality.
Reflection:
The core strands of robotics: perception, recognition and cognition. Once a robot can fully develop these skills they will be able to achieve unimaginable tasks. In the near future the world as we know it will change immensely. For better or worse one can never know.