Brooks, Rodney (A.) 1954-

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BROOKS, Rodney (A.) 1954-

PERSONAL: Born 1954, in Adelaide, Australia. Education: Flinders University, Australia, M.S.; Stanford University, Ph.D., 1981.

ADDRESSES: Office—MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, 200 Technology Square, Cambridge, MA, 02139 E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, professor of computer science, 1984—, artificial intelligence laboratory, director.

MEMBER: American Association for Artificial Intelligence (founding fellow), American Association for the Advancement of Science (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS: Computers and Thought Award, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1991.

WRITINGS:

Model-based Computer Vision, UMI Research Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1984.

Programming in Common LISP, Wiley (New York, NY), 1985.

(Editor, with Pattie Maes) Artificial Life IV: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1994.

(Editor, with Luc Steels) The Artificial Life Route to Artificial Intelligence Building Embodied, Situated Agents, L. Erlbaum Associates (Hillsdale, NJ), 1995.

Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1999.

Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, Pantheon Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Robot: The Future of Flesh and Machines, Allen Lane (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor to periodicals, including Nature. 2001; author of more than fifty papers in model-based computing, uncertainty analysis, path planning, artificial life, planetary exploration, autonomous robots, active vision, robot assembly, and compiler design.

SIDELIGHTS: Computer scientist Rodney Brooks is an academic, inventor, and writer. His work and writings have centered on artificial intelligence, where he has written several books on its history and future.

Born in Adelaide, Australia in 1954, Brooks was fascinated by the technology that was so lacking in his home town. Because he couldn't find many computers in Adelaide, he built one: a tic-tac-toe playing machine, made from light bulbs, soldering wire and old telephone switchboards. When he couldn't find computer science programs at Australian universities, he studied mathematics at Flinders University in South Australia instead. But his interest in computers persisted, so he left his home country to study computer science at Stanford University in California and within three years of receiving his Ph.D., he began teaching computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1984. He has since and become the director of MIT's artificial intelligence laboratory.

At MIT Brooks explored the idea of programming robots based on behavior. Brooks' robots are not specifically programmed for every action, commented David McIntosh in his CBI Network Book Review critique of Brooks' Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us. Instead of programming robots to do everything, Brooks programs them so that they can fend for themselves. Brooks' contribution has been to create stupid robots, the opposite of what others in his field are trying to do, McIntosh noted.

At MIT's artificial intelligence laboratory, Brooks created three robots—Coco, Cog, and Kismet—all of whom are designed to be humanesque either through eye movement, facial expression, or self-control. Brooks hoped they will be able to increase their intelligence through social interactions.

In 1999 Brooks published Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI, a collection of eight technical papers dating between 1985 and 1991. After a preface that explains Brooks's approach, his book is split into two sections: technology, which focuses on robotic systems and various approaches; and philosophy, which centers on the changing ideas in the field of robotics. Each section includes introductions to the papers explaining why Brooks wrote them, as well as the academic climate during their creation. Kevin Warwick noted in his review in the Times Higher Education Supplement that the papers are a combination of "must-reads" and "idle ramblings of the self-styled bad boy of American robotics, when given an invitation to a conference, but with nothing new to say."

In Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us Brooks explores the history of robotics and its possible future. The main theme is the question of whether engineering and physics can invent consciousness. His answer is yes. Brooks begins the book with an overview of artificial intelligence. Peppered with personal anecdotes and observations of humankind, he then plunges into his work, and the work of his colleagues, as they build insect-looking robots, one after the next.

Brooks argues against the public's tendency to stymie robotics, stemming from a fear of being taken over. Instead, he predicts a future where people create and work with robots that aren't in danger of taking over the world, but are simply useful tools to have around. He predicts that robots will soon become maids and butlers, useful for everyday purposes. This will create a new consumer demand for robots, a demand that previously only existed for manufacturing. Brooks concludes the book by saying that humans are incorporating more and more technology into their bodies through implants and prosthetic devices, and that, like it or not, we are becoming increasingly cyborg: part flesh and part machine.

In Robot: The Future of Flesh and Machines Brooks predicts technology happenings for the upcoming decade. He begins with an autobiography of his life in science, and explains how he became such a rebel in the world of robotics. "These chapters are scientific autobiography at its best," overflowing with discovery, wrote Dylan Evans in his Guardian review. The rest of the book mixes science, ethics, philosophy, and futurology, Evans noted.

In addition to writing, building robots, and teaching, Brooks founded the iRobot Corporation, which builds commercial robots for homes and businesses. Brooks is also the co-founder of the International Journal of Computer Vision, and is on the editorial boards of Adaptive Behavior, Artificial Life, Applied Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Robots, and New Generation Computing. He is on the board of the Intelligent Inspection Corporation, is a founding fellow of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Brooks was one of the subjects of the documentary "Fast, Cheap, and out of Control," a 1997 Errol Morris film in which Brooks plays himself.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, May-June, 1995, Brian Hayes, review of Artificial Life VI: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, pp. 284-285.

CBI Network Book Review, 2002, David S. McIntosh, review of Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us.

Choice, February, 2000, P. K. Basu, review of Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI, p. 1133.

Guardian, April 20, 2002, Dylan Evans, review of Robot: The Future of Flesh and Machines.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, March 31, 2002, Michael Hiltzik, review of Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, p. 6.

Popular Science, June, 1995, Robert Langreth, "The Bad Boy of Robotics," pp. 88-91, 109.

Times Higher Education Supplement, September 15, 2000, Kevin Warwick, review of Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI, p.32.