ash’s Reviews > Living with Robots: What Every Anxious Human Needs to Know > Status Update

I wasn't nearly as interested in the mechanics of how robots will move and found this chapter dragged on a bit. The research behind this seems tiring and an area I'm glad I'm not working in. Living up to societal expectations of how robots should move, but being crushed by the reality that human structured robots are complex and not the most efficient.

As someone who works in web development, it was interesting reading about the design methodologies used to build modern robots and the user research that pushes those designs forward. Specifically in the context of realistic human-looking robots vs. believable friendly-friend WALL-E-looking robots. I enjoyed this chapter!

Interesting concepts about why humans, mostly in western society, are fearful of robots. The takeaway were that we assign robots genders which humanizes them and we see them more like us(humans) which suggests that they have consciousness or self awareness. But also, films in Western society robots seem to turn against humans thus sparking fear. Also, robots will take our jobs as slaves & perhaps rise up.

The introduction sounds promising. Media headlines tend to over-hype AI, and this book promise to kill that hype! I'm sold! I'm curious to see what this book unpacks.

Extra reading/Watching:
- Marvin Minsky's suitcase words.
- AlphaGo Documentary