A Neuroscientist Looks at Robots

The book, written for a general educated public, compares the most important elements of the human nervous system to the corresponding capacities of robots. Crucial are the areas of activities for which the constraints limiting human and robot performances are much different. Those areas offer opportunities for synergies.

The book argues that we now understand mechanisms for emotional feelings in the human brain so well that we will be able to program robots to act as though they also have emotion. Written in a clear and open fashion by an expert neuroscientist, the book will appeal to interested lay readers in addition to neuroscientists and computer scientists.

Contents:

• Introduction
• Robots Yesterday
• Sentient Machines
• Motors to Go
• Emotions
• Regulation and Display of "Emotions" by Robots
• Human–Robot Interactions
• Legal Implications of Living and Working with Robots
• Robots Tomorrow
• Index

Readership: Interested lay readers, students and researchers in biology, neuroscience, computer vision, neural networks and psychology.
Key Features:

• It is unique in comparing brain to robot controls
• It is absolutely up to date in describing current capacities of robots
• It looks not only at social implications of burgeoning robot capacities but also at the legal implications