Robots from fiction to industrial fact and on to the future, 2 June, 2002
Reviewer: (crombieam@aol.com) from Bridge of Weir, Scotland
Engineers are frequently seen as cogs in the machine grinding mankind down into a dystopian future. Robots have suffered too, sometimes guilt by association and sometimes as baddies in their own right where machines rule and mankind suffers in poverty or intellectual oppression. Now engineers and robots have a very effective PR man in Rodney A Brooks, robot designer and Professor of Computer Science at MIT.
His book "Robot, The future of flesh and machine" is partly an autobiography covering his fifteen-year career in practical and profitable robotics with MIT and NTT. We see how his 'bottom-up', behaviour-based approach to robotics turned the field of Artificial Intelligence on its head. He recounts the history of as he describes designing space exploration vehicles, intelligent mobile robots and his profit making toy "My Real Baby" a mass produced robot doll that demands attention and reacts to that attention.
After his fascinatingly readable historical section Brooks speculates on imminent developments in robotics. He challenges the perception that there will be a battle between Man and Machine. Suggesting that we are just a special case of a machine he argues there is no real distinction between man and machine. In future we will morph ourselves into machines. Cochlea implants, hearing aids which directly connect to the human nervous system, are just one of the first steps to make better humans by hybridising with computers. By sketching an increasingly optimistic future he crisps up the questions we need to ask ourselves as we get there. In Robot, Brooks gives a firm foundation for further speculation and presents one vision of our future and our future selves - one where humans retain control and robotic bits will augment our capabilities but will engineers ever again get as good press as this?

Robot
Rodney A. Brooks

Amazon.co.uk Review
For someone who runs MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory--one of the world's leading AI institutes--Robot author Rodney Brooks is remarkably laid-back about the business of intelligence.
In fact, he doesn't rate it very highly. In an account of a life's work remarkable for its wit, its humility and its generosity (Brooks's colleagues and students are very well served), a running theme is the conspicuous impossibility of building intelligence into machines that are otherwise not lifelike. Brooks bemoans those experimental robots which "used reasoning in situations where real animals have direct links from perception to action".
His own approach is much less abstruse, much easier to understand and communicate--and much more radical. Brooks's robots aren't supposed to think. They're supposed to feel. They have emotions. 'Just sensing and action. This is all I would build, and completely leave out what traditionally was thought of as the intelligence of an artificial intelligence.'
The result of his work is a living menagerie of extraordinary philosophical importance. Wander through Brooks's 'zoo', and you may find your own biological specialness challenged. More important, though, is what these lovingly detailed experiments say about the body (whatever it's made from), about feelings, and about the incalculably messy nature of the world.
Rarely, in a literature besotted with abstraction and disembodiment, do we come across a life-enhancing book. This is it.--Simon Ings
Synopsis
The world is changing at an ever-increasing pace. Most of us have accepted the idea that the World Wide Web is now an important part of life and here to stay. But where will technology take us next? What is on the horizon? This book introduces the reader to recent advances in robotics. The author Rodney A. Brooks has seen the future: robots will not take over the human race; flesh will instead merge with machine. This is already happening, and this work reveals how.

A small book with a big point to make - essential reading for all those with an interest in A.I. and Mobile robots - Scotland October 2002

A Definite Read For A-Life and Robotics, 17 May, 1999
Reviewer: cwingrav@vt.edu from Viginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
This great book is for those not looking for an end but seeking a book that acts as a guide through the world of complexity. It is a starting place for new ideas and has been quoted several times by several people doing important research because it is such a great text.
Once again, no disrespect to the bottom reviewer but they completely missed the point of this fine work. This is not a summation book on the field but a starting point for new and creative ideas.

A book to challenge your thinking, 7 May, 1999
Reviewer: Jason Noble (noble@mpib-berlin.mpg.de) from Berlin, Germany
With respect, I think the previous reviewer has missed the point of this excellent book. Yes, Braitenberg "personifies" simple electro-mechanical relationships. But his whole point in doing so is to make us aware of how readily we personify animate objects in our environment, including each other.
With a playfulness not usually found in the writings of neuroscientists, Braitenberg starts with very simple machines or vehicles that respond to their environment. He shows that, despite the simple internal workings of these machines, we would be likely to impute feelings and desires to them. As the book goes on, Braitenberg discusses increasingly complicated machines, although remaining firmly in the realm of things that could potentially be built. The later machines appear to be capable of impressive feats of memory, planning and foresight, and yet they are ultimately made up of "simple electro-mechanical relationships". By the close of the book, one realizes belatedly that Braitenberg has sketched out (in fable-like form) a possible history of the evolution of intelligence.
For all those fascinated by the question of how the complexities of human and animal behaviour arise from the relatively simple world of the neuron, this book is a must.

Good starting point for budding pop-culture AI philosopers., 26 December, 1998
Reviewer: caporc@prodigy.net from Troy, NY
Braitenburg's book, Vehicles, is both a success and failure. As a philosophy paper, it is full of ideas for AI systems, simple that they may be, to emulate some interesting "behaviors". Unfortunately, Braitenburg's ideas and style of writing would personify very simple electromechanical relationships such as: Shine a light on a sensor, and the vehicle backs away. This could be called "timid". From any hard science or engineering standpoint, the book is stilted and somewhat incomplete.