The robots are here. Some look like insects, some try to fly like eagles. MIT’s humanoid Kismet can help you find your car keys and he even gets bored. Evolving in a British garage is “Lucy,” the latest member of the cyber tribe. She has a toy orangutan head stuffed with computers, and her cybergod creator hopes someday she’ll reproduce.
Brilliant bots are in our future. They’ll talk to us, eat and sleep and have feelings, so say top minds in the field of Artificial Intelligence. But here’s the catch: we’re going to have to step aside, mentally and spiritually, to let them through. Part of creating new, sentient beings is redefining what it means to be alive, to be intelligent. Demystifying ourselves and letting go of our spiritual pretensions.
Guests:
Steve Grand, inventor of the computer game Creators, and author of “Creation, Life and How to Make It;” Ann Grand, co-creator of the robot “Lucy;” Rodney Brooks, roboticist, director of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, and author of a new book called “Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change us”