Digital People: From Bionic Humans to Androids

247 Pages·2004·4.49 MB·English

by  Sidney Perkowitz

Digital People:
From Bionic Humans to
Androids
Sidney Perkowitz
The Joseph Henry Press

by
Sidney Perkowitz
Joseph Henry Press
Washington, D.C.
Joseph Henry Press • 500 Fifth Street, N.W. • Washington, D.C. 20001
The Joseph Henry Press, an imprint of the National Academies Press, was
created with the goal of making books on science, technology, and health
more widely available to professionals and the public. Joseph Henry was one
of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences and a leader in early
American science.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this
volume are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Academy of Sciences or its affiliated institutions.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perkowitz, S.
Digital people : from bionic humans to androids / Sidney Perkowitz.
p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-08987-5 (hardback)
1. Robotics. 2. Artificial intelligence. I. Title.
TJ211.P44 2004
629.8’92—dc22
2004000049
Copyright 2004 by Sidney Perkowitz. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
To Sandy and Mike, with love, . . . again

Contents
1 Introduction: Androids All Around Us 1
PART I: ARTIFICIAL BEINGS:
MEANING AND HISTORY
2 The Virtual History of Artificial Beings 17
3 The Real History of Artificial Beings 51
4 We Have Always Been Bionic 85
PART II: HOW FAR ALONG ARE WE?
5 Mind-Body Problems 105
6 Limbs, Movement, and Expression 123
vii
viii CONTENTS
7 The Five Senses, and Beyond 147
8 Thinking, Emotion, and Self-Awareness 173
9 Frankenstein’s Creature or Commander Data? 199
Suggested Reading 220
Filmography 225
Acknowledgments 227
Index 229
1
Introduction:
Androids All Around Us
Y
ou might not know it, but among us there exist artificial
beings that are lifelike enough to give you goose bumps. If
you had visited robot developer Rodney Brooks at MIT in
the late 1990s, you would have met his Cog (short for “cognitive”)
robot. Shaped vaguely like a human head and torso, and built more or
less to human scale, Cog still looked alien and machinelike because it
was made of girders and electronic components. Instead of eyes, video
cameras located in its head fed visual information to its computer
brain.
But when I saw Cog’s intricate body language, I forgot its ma-
chine appearance. Although it did not look like a person, it acted like
one. Those sensors and computers, motors and metal supports kept its
“eyes” in continual motion, scanning the scene for interesting events—
just as our own brains and eyes do at an unconscious level. And when
the door opened and a student walked in, Cog did what you or I
would; it stopped scanning and turned toward the visitor. As Cog
brought its gaze and (apparently) its full attention to bear on her, the
action was so eerily human that it gave me a moment of hair-raising,
gut-level understanding, for in that instant, Cog seemed fully alive
and conscious.
1