Robot, Mere Machine To Transcendent Mind
by Hans Moravec
Oxford University Press, 1999
More monsters under the bed, boys and girls. Like we need anymore, but oh well.
Hans Moravec isn’t some journalism major who assembled a hack’s story from a couple of month’s research, no sir. Fucker’s got credentials. Builds robots. Likes ‘em. Working his best to IMPROVE the damn things.
So when he says this, or perhaps that, is very likely to happen in the not so distant future, you can feel comfortable in the fact that the sonofabitch is probably correct in his surmise. And it’s some of the surmising that’s given me a case of the galloping collywobbles.
Robot starts out with a short history lesson that details the major features in the landscape of robotic development, explains where we are today, and then boldly goes where no robot has gone before. Out where the Weird Things lurk, in the dark corners of our imaginations.
I see more than a passing resemblance to some of the neck hair prickling stuff in Nano , by Ed Regis. Another brave new future, where the role of humankind seems to have been relegated to a parasitic existence living on the back of a truly bizarre new “life form” and smugly believing that the New Things will cheerfully suffer our useless dependence upon them forever.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is hard at work, attempting to make your future an easier one. God forbid, the sonofabitch just might pull it off.
