1. Introduction
The term robot means different things to different people. Science fiction books and movies have strongly influenced what many people expect a robot to be or what it can do. Sadly the practice of robotics is far behind this popular conception. One thing is certain though — robotics will be an important technology in this century.
What is a robot? A definition that will serve us well is:
a goal oriented machine that can sense, plan and act
Robot history
- Robot history timeline, upto 1998 (David Buckely)
- Robot timeline (part 1), upto 1942
- Robot timeline (part 2), upto 2008
- Robot history timeline, upto 1998 (David Buckely)
- Robot Hall of Fame
- The Cybernetic zoo (info about all manner of robot/cybernetics/cyborg machines
- Real Robots from Tales of Future Past @ davidzondy.com
- Computer History Museum Artificial Intelligence & Robotics
Robot fiction
- 80 years of robots in Hollywood (Time)
- Top 10 Hollywood robots
- Classic robots from the movies
- Where’s WALL.E? (how many fictional robots you can name?)
- Rossums Universal Robots (the play)
- Karel Capek website
- Who did actually invent the word robot (was it Karel’s brother?)
Unimation Inc. (the first robotics company)
- The rise and fall of Unimation Inc., George Munson with Leslie Ballard
- George Devol (founder) (wikipedia)
- Joe Engelberger (founder) (wikipedia)
Robots general
- Robot video collection (YouTube)
- DARPA Grand Challenge
Robots, society and ethics
- Robots as media (Peter Asaro), big resource list
- Robot philosophy, ethics, history and media (Peter Asaro)
- Stop Killer Robots
- Why the future doesn’t need us (Bill Joy)
- Governing Lethal Behaviour in Autonomous Robots (Ron Arkin)
- Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (Peter Singer)
- Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (Nick Bostrom)
- Love and Sex with Robots: The evolution of human-robot relationships (David Levy)
- The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future (Martin Ford)
- Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine (J. Storrs Hall)
- The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee)
Robots, cybernetics and artificial intelligence
- Cybernetics (wikipedia)
- History of artificial intelligence (wikipedia)
- John McCarthy bio (wikipedia)
- John McCarthy’s home page with musings on many topics
- The Dartmouth AI conference proposal
- The Ratio Club: British cybernetics (1945-1955)
- The Ratio Club: A Hub of British Cybernetics (PDF) by Phil Husbands and Owen Holland
- Photo of club members including Alan Turing
