WHAT is it like to be in a place where you, and everyone around you, designs, thinks and dreams robots? Lee Gutkind, editor and founder of the journal Creative Nonfiction, does a good journalistic job on life and work in Carnegie Mellon鈥檚 Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, arguably the best robotics laboratory in the world. Here, the challenges robots face include exploring the surface of Mars and negotiating the pitfalls of a mine.
The book makes it clear that the words 鈥渉uman鈥� and 鈥渢hink鈥� in the title are mere anthropomorphisms, as distant from today鈥檚 robots as 鈥渟tubbornness鈥� is from the car that won鈥檛 start. It is also evident that the robot-builders love and cherish their robots, perhaps even more than they do humans.
Almost Human: Making robots think
W. W. Norton
