You may be using an older version of the Adobe Flash Player. To enjoy multimedia content on WGBH.org, please click here to upgrade to the latest version of the free Flash player.

Transrobotism: Human-Robot Bonds
April 24, 2007
Rodney Brooks robotics specialist
Joy Hirsch director, fMRI Research Center, Columbia University
Sherry Turkle director, MIT Initiative on Technology and Self
Peter L. Galison professor, history of science, Harvard
David Rodowick professor, environmental studies, Harvard
Pia Lindman artist in residence, MIT AI lab

A panel discusses the emerging new realities of human-machine relationships. When a humanoid robot successfully mirrors human emotion and evokes an emotional response from us, what happens to our understanding of ourselves and our emotional reality?

Media & Technology | Science & Nature
Computing | Electronics | Engineering | Robotics & AI
WGBH
Cambridge Science Festival
MIT Museum
The Future of Reading: Books Without Pages?
David Pogue
01:36:23
New York Times personal technology columnist David Pogue takes a look at how reading and books will be experienced in the future. Steve Haber of Sony, Neil Jones of Interead, and Mary Lou Jepsen, founder of Pixel Qi, showcase new technology.
Space and Beyond: US Policy, Space Security, and Arms Control
Joan Johnson-Freese
01:22:33
Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the Department of National Security Strategy at the Naval War College, and Laura Grego, scientist for the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, discuss space security and the future of space relations in a panel moderated by leading political ana
Vikram Kumar: Software Solutions to Societal Problems
Vikram Sheel Kumar
00:21:05
Vikram Kumar explains in detail his current projects and why he believes that “behind every societal ill is a solvable software problem.” He has developed, among other things, an electronic medical records system used by tens of thousands of people in Zambia; software that can detect clinical depres
Jaron Lanier: You Are Not a Gadget
Jaron Lanier
00:49:32
Computer scientist Jaron Lanier discusses his new book, You Are Not a Gadget.
Audio-only
Postcards from China
James Fallows
01:27:47
James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, who has been living in China for the last two years, discusses his book, Postcards from Tomorrow Square: Reports from China, with the founder of Harvard University's Global Equity Initiative, Dr. Lincoln Chen.
Lewis Lapham: Mixed Media
Lewis H. Lapham
00:58:49
Harper's Magazine editor Lewis Lapham observes that the media these days speak in so many forked and foreign tongues - film, book, video game, broadcast, blog - that without a dictionary or a concordance it is hard to know who is saying what to whom.
Image of Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us
Author: Rodney Brooks
Publisher: Vintage (2003)
Binding: Paperback, 272 pages
Image of Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI
Author: Rodney A. Brooks
Publisher: The MIT Press (1999)
Binding: Paperback, 213 pages
Image of The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Author: Sherry Turkle
Publisher: The MIT Press (2005)
Binding: Paperback, 386 pages
Image of Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
Author: Sherry Turkle
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (1997)
Binding: Paperback, 352 pages
Image of Simulation and Its Discontents (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life)
Author: Sherry Turkle
Publisher: The MIT Press (2009)
Binding: Hardcover, 208 pages
Image of Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time
Author: Peter Galison
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (2004)
Binding: Paperback, 400 pages
Image of How Experiments End
Author: Peter Galison
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (1987)
Binding: Paperback, 337 pages
Image of Image and Logic: A Material Culture of Microphysics
Author: Peter Louis Galison
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (1997)
Binding: Paperback, 982 pages
Image of The Virtual Life of Film
Author: D. N. Rodowick
Publisher: Harvard University Press (2007)
Binding: Paperback, 216 pages
Login or register to post comments