This book explores how robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance human lives but also have unsettling “dark sides.” It examines expanding forms of negativity and anxiety about robots, AI, and autonomous vehicles as our human environments are reengineered for intelligent military and security systems and for optimal workplace and domestic operations. It focuses on the impacts of initiatives to make robot interactions more humanlike and less creepy (as with domestic and sex robots). It analyzes the emerging resistances against these entities in the wake of omnipresent AI applications (such as “killer robots” and ubiquitous surveillance). It unpacks efforts by developers to have ethical and social influences on robotics and AI, and confronts the AI hype that is designed to shield the entities from criticism. The book draws from science fiction, dramaturgical, ethical, and legal literatures as well as current research agendas of corporations. Engineers, implementers, and researchers have often encountered users' fears and aggressive actions against intelligent entities, especially in the wake of deaths of humans by robots and autonomous vehicles. The book is an invaluable resource for developers and researchers in the field, as well as curious readers who want to play proactive roles in shaping future technologies.

Rob the robot is misbehaving. He doesn't stop, even when Max and his mom tell him to. With carefully leveled text, young readers can follow along and find out what he does next!

BAD ROBOT immerses the reader deeply into the high-tech world of robotic surgery and highlights the potentially disastrous consequences when robotic surgery goes awry. Anesthesiologist Luke Daulton is back after his harrowing brush with death at the hands of Dr. Katz two years ago in Fatal Complications. Now, after a series of unexplainable--and deadly--post-surgical complications, Luke finds himself entangled in a tumultuous love triangle between hospital co-workers; a triangle rife with sex, jealousy, anger, and revenge--where murder is just a matter of time.

This volume investigates the ways emerging technologies in the fields of robotics and bio-robotics are influencing society. It necessarily considers both philosophical and technological study of robots, including what it means for robots to exist as good and moral entities, and how they benefit humans and enhance their quality of life. Contributors address artificial intelligence and social functions as well as technical matters. Chapters are wide-ranging, and consider robots in science fiction; the need for designers to create moral robots; specific technology; and the development of biological robots. Also addressed are robotic technologies already enhancing human bodies, such as exoskeletons that allow paraplegics to walk. The contributors foresee robots becoming involved not only in mundane domestic tasks such as washing dishes, but also in providing health care to the disabled and companionship to the elderly. This volume offers exciting philosophical reflections that unveil new connections between robotics and praxiology and their practical applications.

Introduce kids to the planets and solar system in this fractured fairy tale retelling of the classic The Three Little Pigs. Parents and children alike will adore this out-of-this-world story, which is set in outer space! GREEP BOINK MEEP! The three little aliens are happily settling into their new homes when the Big Bad Robot flies in to crack and smack and whack their houses down! A chase across the solar system follows in this humorous and visually stunning book from Margaret McNamara (How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?) and Mark Fearing (The Book that Eats People). The endpapers even include a labeled diagram of all the planets.

For fans of THE ROSIE PROJECT and THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHTTIME, a broken man and his damaged robot build an unlikely friendship—with some assembly required. Ben's really great at failing at things—his job, being a husband, taking the garbage out. But then he finds a battered robot named Tang in his garden. And Tang needs Ben. More ornery and prone to tantrums than one would expect from something made of gears and springs, Tang desperately must be fixed—and he just might be the thing to fix what's broken in Ben. Together they will discover that friendship can rise up under the strangest of circumstances, and what it really means to be human. Funny, touching, charming, wise, and a bit unusual, A Robot in the Garden is a gem of a first novel, perfect for anyone who has ever found it difficult to connection with the world. "Our hero is a FANTASTIC and UNFORGETTABLE creation, and so is this absolute marvel of a novel."—Neil Smith, author of Bang Crunch and Boo "An inventive and utterly charming tale...heartwarming."—Booklist, Starred Review

An introduction to the science and practice of autonomous robots that reviews over 300 current systems and examines the underlying technology.