Our Robot Future - Rodney Brooks

Rodney Brooks, former iRobot CTO, describes the limitations of today's "stiff" factory robots. Looking forward, Brooks envisions a future where people interact with robots in the same way we now work with computers.

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Heartland Robotics Chairman and CTO Rodney Brooks asks: What will it take for robots to be added to the toolchest of the makers of American manufacturing, so that they can increase productivity, provide better jobs for American workers, and compete even more strongly in our globalized world?

Following on President Obama's call to "begin again the work of remaking America," Maker Faire 2009 was organized around the theme of Re-Make America. Held in the San Francisco Bay Area, Maker Faire celebrates what President Obama called "the risk takers, the doers, and the makers of things." - Maker Faire 2009

Dr. Rodney Brooks is a robotics entrepreneur and Founder, Chairman and CTO of Heartland Robotics, Inc. He is also a Founder, Board Member and former CTO (1991 - 2008) of iRobot Corp (Nasdaq: IRBT) and the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (on leave) at MIT. Dr. Brooks is the former Director (1997 - 2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He received degrees in pure mathematics from the Flinders University of South Australia and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1981. He held research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and a faculty position at Stanford before joining the faculty of MIT in 1984. He has published many papers and books in computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, and artificial life.