In a robot revolution a record 3.1 million robots are now working in factories, doing everything from assembling computers to packing goods and monitoring air quality and performance. A far greater number of smart machines impact our lives in countless other ways—improving the precision of surgeons, cleaning our homes, extending our reach to distant worlds—and we’re on the cusp of even more exciting opportunities.
Robots have enabled us to explore dark ocean depths and the surface of Mars. They can act as transportation, serve as personal trainers, help diagnose disease, plow fields, milk cows, and even do household chores. Though robots can mimic a great deal, they cannot replicate care, says pioneering roboticist and computer scientist Daniela Rus: They lack heart.
Drawing on her new book, The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots, co-written with Gregory Mone, Rus—the first woman to direct MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory—reframes the way we think about intelligent machines and weighs the moral and ethical consequences of their role in society. She envisions a world in which these technologies augment and enhance our skills and talents, both as individuals and as a species, and where the proliferation of robots allows us to be more human.
Copies of The Heart and the Chip (W. W. Norton & Company) are available for sale.
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