A new book by editor and founder Lee Gutkind

W.W Norton and Co. (c)2007

A remarkable, intense portrait of the robotics subculture and the challenging quest for robot autonomy.

The high bay at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University is alive and hyper night and day with the likes of Hyperion, which traversed the Antarctic, and Zoe, the world’s first robot scientist, now back home. Robot Segways learn to play soccer, while other robots go on treasure hunts or are destined for hospitals and museums. Dozens of cavorting mechanical creatures, along with tangles of wire, tools, and computer innards are scattered haphazardly. All of these zipping and zooming gizmos are controlled by disheveled young men sitting on the floor, folding chairs, or tool cases, or huddled over laptops squinting into displays with manic intensity. Award-winning author Lee Gutkind immersed himself in this frenzied subculture, following these young roboticists and their bold conceptual machines from Pittsburgh to NASA and to the most barren and arid desert on earth. He makes intelligible their discoveries and stumbling points in this lively behind-the-scenes work.

For more information visit the Almost Human: Making Robots Think official website.

Reviews & Articles

"An in-depth glimpse into the exciting, if embryonic, developments in one of the world's leading robotics laboratories, where today's robots now play games and get trained to drive vehicles and scout landscapes, and tomorrow's robots will be created."

-LAWRENCE KRAUSS, Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Case Western Reserve Unbiversity, and author of The Physics of Star Trak and Hiding in the Mirror.

"An eloquent meditiation on the fragile and increasingly friable line between flesh and metal, dendrites and wires. The book tells the tale of mad scientist and the strangely sane machines they create; in doing so, it illuminates the rarified world of computer sceince while smultaneously transcending it, or widening it, by bringing to light the essential questions robots raise for us--questions of autonomy, of cognition, of ambition and the toll it takes."

-LAUREN SLATER, author of Opening Skinner's Box and Blue Beyond Blue

Almost Human was featured on NPR’s "Talk of the Nation. Listen and respond to the program:

Blog of the Nation: "I, Robot"
Interviews: "Examining the Sensitive Side of Robots"

Lee Gutkind discusses Almost Human on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. See the clip

Read Lee's "12 Questions About the Future of Robots" on American Scholar.org.

For more articles visit the Almost Human: Making Robots Think official website.

Events

Lee will be giving reading and talks at locations around the country.

See Lee's schedule of appearances.