Download or read book Nature s Robots written by Charles Tanford and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2003-11-27 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proteins are amazingly versatile molecules. They make the chemical reactions happen that form the basis for life, they transmit signals in the body, they identify and kill foreign invaders, they form the engines that make us move, and they record visual images. All of this is now common knowledge, but it was not so a hundred years ago. Nature's Robots is an authoritative history of protein science, from the origins of protein research in the nineteenth century, when the chemical constitution of 'protein' was first studied and heatedly debated and when there was as yet no glimmer of the functional potential of substances in the 'protein' category, to the determination of the first structures of individual proteins at atomic resolution - when positions of individual atoms were first specified exactly and bonding between neighbouring atoms precisely defined. Tanford and Reynolds, who themselves made major contributions to the golden age of protein science, have written a remarkably vivid account of this history. It is a fascinating story, involving heroes from the past, working mostly alone or in small groups, usually with little support from formal research groups. It is also a story that embraces a number of historically important scientific controversies. Written in clear and accessible prose, Nature's Robots will appeal to general readers with an interest in popular science, in addition to professional scientists and historians of science.
Download or read book Living with Robots written by Paul Dumouchel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-06 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Preface to the English edition -- Introduction -- The substitute -- Animals, machines, cyborgs, and the taxi -- Mind, emotions, and artificial empathy -- The other otherwise -- From moral and lethal machines to synthetic ethics
Download or read book Robots Inspired by Nature written by Angie Smibert and published by Focus Readers. This book was released on 2018-08 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifies and explores innovative robotic technology that was inspired by nature. Accessible text, supplementary sidebars, and an interesting infographic reveal for readers the science behind these technologies and the animals and plants that inspired them.
Download or read book Moral Machines written by Wendell Wallach and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Moral Machines is a fine introduction to the emerging field of robot ethics. There is much here that will interest ethicists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and roboticists." ---Peter Danielson, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews --
Download or read book Tales from a Robotic World written by Dario Floreano and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories from the future of intelligent machines—from rescue drones to robot spouses—and accounts of cutting-edge research that could make it all possible. Tech prognosticators promised us robots—autonomous humanoids that could carry out any number of tasks. Instead, we have robot vacuum cleaners. But, as Dario Floreano and Nicola Nosengo report, advances in robotics could bring those rosy predictions closer to reality. A new generation of robots, directly inspired by the intelligence and bodies of living organisms, will be able not only to process data but to interact physically with humans and the environment. In this book, Floreano, a roboticist, and Nosengo, a science writer, bring us tales from the future of intelligent machines—from rescue drones to robot spouses—along with accounts of the cutting-edge research that could make it all possible. These stories from the not-so-distant future show us robots that can be used for mitigating effects of climate change, providing healthcare, working with humans on the factory floor, and more. Floreano and Nosengo tell us how an application of swarm robotics could protect Venice from flooding, how drones could reduce traffic on the congested streets of mega-cities like Hong Kong, and how a “long-term relationship model” robot could supply sex, love, and companionship. After each fictional scenario, they explain the technologies that underlie it, describing advances in such areas as soft robotics, swarm robotics, aerial and mobile robotics, humanoid robots, wearable robots, and even biohybrid robots based on living cells. Robotics technology is no silver bullet for all the world’s problems—but it can help us tackle some of the most pressing challenges we face.
Download or read book Nature Inspired Robotics written by Jagjit Singh Dhatterwal and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2024-07-24 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the theories and methods of Nature-Inspired Robotics in artificial intelligence. Software and hardware technologies, alongside theories and methods, illustrate the application of bio-inspired artificial intelligence. It includes discussions on topics such as Robot Control Manipulators, Geometric Transformation, Robotic Drive Systems and Nature Inspired Robotic Neural System. Elaborating upon recent progress made in five distinct configurations of nature-inspired computing, it explores the potential applications of this technology in two specific areas: neuromorphic computing systems and neuromorphic perceptual systems. · Discusses advances in cutting-edge technology in brain-inspired computing, perception technologies and aspects of neuromorphic electronics · Offers a thorough introduction to two-terminal neuromorphic memristors, including memristive devices and resistive switching mechanisms · Provides comprehensive explorations of spintronic neuromorphic devices and multi-terminal neuromorphic devices with cognitive behaviours · Includes cognitive behaviour of Inspired Robotics and cognitive technologies with applications in Artificial Intelligence · Contains practical discussions of neuromorphic devices based on chalcogenide and organic materials. This text acts as a reference book for students, scholars, and industry professionals.
Download or read book Our Robots Ourselves written by David A. Mindell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[An] essential book… it is required reading as we seriously engage one of the most important debates of our time.”—Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age From drones to Mars rovers—an exploration of the most innovative use of robots today and a provocative argument for the crucial role of humans in our increasingly technological future. In Our Robots, Ourselves, David Mindell offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the cutting edge of robotics today, debunking commonly held myths and exploring the rapidly changing relationships between humans and machines. Drawing on firsthand experience, extensive interviews, and the latest research from MIT and elsewhere, Mindell takes us to extreme environments—high atmosphere, deep ocean, and outer space—to reveal where the most advanced robotics already exist. In these environments, scientists use robots to discover new information about ancient civilizations, to map some of the world’s largest geological features, and even to “commute” to Mars to conduct daily experiments. But these tools of air, sea, and space also forecast the dangers, ethical quandaries, and unintended consequences of a future in which robotics and automation suffuse our everyday lives. Mindell argues that the stark lines we’ve drawn between human and not human, manual and automated, aren’t helpful for understanding our relationship with robotics. Brilliantly researched and accessibly written, Our Robots, Ourselves clarifies misconceptions about the autonomous robot, offering instead a hopeful message about what he calls “rich human presence” at the center of the technological landscape we are now creating.
Download or read book Machines of Loving Grace written by John Markoff and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robots are poised to transform today's society as completely as the Internet did twenty years ago. Pulitzer prize-winning New York Times science writer John Markoff argues that we must decide to design ourselves into our future, or risk being excluded from it altogether. In the past decade, Google introduced us to driverless cars; Apple debuted Siri, a personal assistant that we keep in our pockets; and an Internet of Things connected the smaller tasks of everyday life to the farthest reaches of the Web. Robots have become an integral part of society on the battlefield and the road; in business, education, and health care. Cheap sensors and powerful computers will ensure that in the coming years, these robots will act on their own. This new era offers the promise of immensely powerful machines, but it also reframes a question first raised more than half a century ago, when the intelligent machine was born. Will we control these systems, or will they control us? In Machines of Loving Grace, John Markoff offers a sweeping history of the complicated and evolving relationship between humans and computers. In recent years, the pace of technological change has accelerated dramatically, posing an ethical quandary. If humans delegate decisions to machines, who will be responsible for the consequences? As Markoff chronicles the history of automation, from the birth of the artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation communities in the 1950s and 1960s, to the modern-day brain trusts at Google and Apple in Silicon Valley, and on to the expanding robotics economy around Boston, he traces the different ways developers have addressed this fundamental problem and urges them to carefully consider the consequences of their work. We are on the brink of the next stage of the computer revolution, Markoff argues, and robots will profoundly transform modern life. Yet it remains for us to determine whether this new world will be a utopia. Moreover, it is now incumbent upon the designers of these robots to draw a bright line between what is human and what is machine. After nearly forty years covering the tech industry, Markoff offers an unmatched perspective on the most drastic technology-driven societal shifts since the introduction of the Internet. Machines of Loving Grace draws on an extensive array of research and interviews to present an eye-opening history of one of the most pressing questions of our time, and urges us to remember that we still have the opportunity to design ourselves into the future—before it's too late.
Download or read book Rights for Robots written by Joshua C. Gellers and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing a unique perspective to the burgeoning ethical and legal issues surrounding the presence of artificial intelligence in our daily lives, the book uses theory and practice on animal rights and the rights of nature to assess the status of robots. Through extensive philosophical and legal analyses, the book explores how rights can be applied to nonhuman entities. This task is completed by developing a framework useful for determining the kinds of personhood for which a nonhuman entity might be eligible, and a critical environmental ethic that extends moral and legal consideration to nonhumans. The framework and ethic are then applied to two hypothetical situations involving real-world technology—animal-like robot companions and humanoid sex robots. Additionally, the book approaches the subject from multiple perspectives, providing a comparative study of legal cases on animal rights and the rights of nature from around the world and insights from structured interviews with leading experts in the field of robotics. Ending with a call to rethink the concept of rights in the Anthropocene, suggestions for further research are made. An essential read for scholars and students interested in robot, animal and environmental law, as well as those interested in technology more generally, the book is a ground-breaking study of an increasingly relevant topic, as robots become ubiquitous in modern society. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/ISBN, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Download or read book Principles of Animal Locomotion written by R. McNeill Alexander and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-19 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can geckoes walk on the ceiling and basilisk lizards run over water? What are the aerodynamic effects that enable small insects to fly? What are the relative merits of squids' jet-propelled swimming and fishes' tail-powered swimming? Why do horses change gait as they increase speed? What determines our own vertical leap? Recent technical advances have greatly increased researchers' ability to answer these questions with certainty and in detail. This text provides an up-to-date overview of how animals run, walk, jump, crawl, swim, soar, hover, and fly. Excluding only the tiny creatures that use cilia, it covers all animals that power their movements with muscle--from roundworms to whales, clams to elephants, and gnats to albatrosses. The introduction sets out the general rules governing all modes of animal locomotion and considers the performance criteria--such as speed, endurance, and economy--that have shaped their selection. It introduces energetics and optimality as basic principles. The text then tackles each of the major modes by which animals move on land, in water, and through air. It explains the mechanisms involved and the physical and biological forces shaping those mechanisms, paying particular attention to energy costs. Focusing on general principles but extensively discussing a wide variety of individual cases, this is a superb synthesis of current knowledge about animal locomotion. It will be enormously useful to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and a range of professional biologists, physicists, and engineers.
Download or read book Robot Proof written by Joseph E. Aoun and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover—filling needs that even the most sophisticated robot cannot. Driverless cars are hitting the road, powered by artificial intelligence. Robots can climb stairs, open doors, win Jeopardy, analyze stocks, work in factories, find parking spaces, advise oncologists. In the past, automation was considered a threat to low-skilled labor. Now, many high-skilled functions, including interpreting medical images, doing legal research, and analyzing data, are within the skill sets of machines. How can higher education prepare students for their professional lives when professions themselves are disappearing? In Robot-Proof, Northeastern University president Joseph Aoun proposes a way to educate the next generation of college students to invent, to create, and to discover—to fill needs in society that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence agent cannot. A “robot-proof” education, Aoun argues, is not concerned solely with topping up students' minds with high-octane facts. Rather, it calibrates them with a creative mindset and the mental elasticity to invent, discover, or create something valuable to society—a scientific proof, a hip-hop recording, a web comic, a cure for cancer. Aoun lays out the framework for a new discipline, humanics, which builds on our innate strengths and prepares students to compete in a labor market in which smart machines work alongside human professionals. The new literacies of Aoun's humanics are data literacy, technological literacy, and human literacy. Students will need data literacy to manage the flow of big data, and technological literacy to know how their machines work, but human literacy—the humanities, communication, and design—to function as a human being. Life-long learning opportunities will support their ability to adapt to change. The only certainty about the future is change. Higher education based on the new literacies of humanics can equip students for living and working through change.
Download or read book Robots at Home written by Christine Zuchora-Walske and published by Lerner Publications ™. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robots work in homes every day. Some vacuum floors or mow lawns. Others keep people company. And some help kids have fun! What robots might you find in someone's home? Read this book to find out!
Download or read book The Wild Robot written by Peter Brown and published by . This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roz the robot discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island with no memory of where she is from or why she is there, and her only hope of survival is to try to learn about her new environment from the island's hostile inhabitants.
Download or read book New Laws of Robotics written by Frank Pasquale and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AI is poised to disrupt our work and our lives. We can harness these technologies rather than fall captive to them—but only through wise regulation. Too many CEOs tell a simple story about the future of work: if a machine can do what you do, your job will be automated. They envision everyone from doctors to soldiers rendered superfluous by ever-more-powerful AI. They offer stark alternatives: make robots or be replaced by them. Another story is possible. In virtually every walk of life, robotic systems can make labor more valuable, not less. Frank Pasquale tells the story of nurses, teachers, designers, and others who partner with technologists, rather than meekly serving as data sources for their computerized replacements. This cooperation reveals the kind of technological advance that could bring us all better health care, education, and more, while maintaining meaningful work. These partnerships also show how law and regulation can promote prosperity for all, rather than a zero-sum race of humans against machines. How far should AI be entrusted to assume tasks once performed by humans? What is gained and lost when it does? What is the optimal mix of robotic and human interaction? New Laws of Robotics makes the case that policymakers must not allow corporations or engineers to answer these questions alone. The kind of automation we get—and who it benefits—will depend on myriad small decisions about how to develop AI. Pasquale proposes ways to democratize that decision making, rather than centralize it in unaccountable firms. Sober yet optimistic, New Laws of Robotics offers an inspiring vision of technological progress, in which human capacities and expertise are the irreplaceable center of an inclusive economy.
Download or read book Robots Inspired by Nature written by Angie Smibert and published by North Star Editions, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-08-01 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Identifies and explores innovative robotic technology that was inspired by nature. Accessible text, supplementary sidebars, and an interesting infographic reveal for readers the science behind these technologies and the animals and plants that inspired them.
Download or read book All About Robots written by Lisa J. Amstutz and published by North Star Editions, Inc.. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the fascinating world of robots. With colorful spreads featuring fun facts, sidebars, and a "How It Works" feature, the book provides an inspiring look at this exciting technology.
Download or read book Human Compatible written by Stuart Jonathan Russell and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2019 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading artificial intelligence researcher lays out a new approach to AI that will enable people to coexist successfully with increasingly intelligent machines.
