Are Robots About to Level Up?
The Joy of Why
Steven Strogatz, Janna Levin and Quanta Magazine
4.9 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 15 August 2024
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Within just a few years, artificial intelligence systems that sometimes seem to display almost human characteristics have gone from science fiction to apps on your phone. But there’s another AI-influenced frontier that is developing rapidly and remains untamed: robotics. Can the technologies that have helped computers get smarter now bring similar improvements to the robots that will work alongside us?
In this episode, Daniela Rus, a pioneering roboticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, talks to host Steven Strogatz about the surprising inspirations from biology that may help robots rise to new levels.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Artificial intelligence systems and robots seem destined to become ever greater parts of the economy, the sciences, and even the arts. |
| 0:18.0 | We're all familiar with the AI doomsday scenarios that populate science fiction, |
| 0:22.9 | but putting that aside, it's obvious that there are better and worse ways of incorporating |
| 0:27.5 | autonomous intelligence systems into our everyday lives. So how do we reduce potential |
| 0:33.3 | friction in dealing with intelligent robots? To bring out the best possible future. |
| 0:38.9 | How can we make robots more collaborative with each other and with us? |
| 0:42.8 | I'm Steve Strogatz and this is The Joy of Why, a podcast from Quantum Magazine, where I take |
| 0:48.4 | turns at the mic with my co-host, Jan 11, exploring some of the biggest unanswered questions |
| 0:53.5 | in math and science today. |
| 0:55.0 | In this episode, we've got Professor Daniela Ruse to talk to us about intelligent robots, |
| 1:02.0 | how they're built, and how we might come to value them as essential, everyday collaborators. |
| 1:07.0 | As a roboticist, computer scientist, and director of MIT's computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory, |
| 1:14.6 | Daniela is at the forefront of the science and engineering of autonomy. |
| 1:19.6 | She's a MacArthur Fellow, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, |
| 1:23.6 | and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the co-author of an exciting new book, The Heart and the Chip, Our Bright Future with Robots. Welcome, Danielle. |
| 1:33.3 | Thank you so much, Steve. I'm so happy to be here. |
| 1:37.3 | Well, we are very happy to have you. I am looking forward to learning all kinds of things with one of the world's great roboticists. |
| 1:44.8 | So let us talk first about what robots are, because I'm not even sure I know. |
| 1:50.1 | What's the difference between a robot and a machine? |
| 1:53.0 | Well, Steve, robots are programmable mechanical devices that can exert forces. |
| 2:00.2 | Robots take input about the world through their sensors, |
| 2:05.0 | reason about that input, and figure out some decisions that impact the world in kind of a |
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