Prices: Robot Books

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  New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction (Advances in Interaction Studies)

  Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) considers how people can interact with robots in order to enable robots to best interact with people. HRI presents many challenges with solutions requiring a unique combination of skills from many fields, including computer science, artificial intelligence, social sciences, ethology and engineering. We have specifically aimed this work to appeal to such a multi-disciplinary audience. This volume presents new and exciting material from HRI researchers who discuss research at the frontiers of HRI. The chapters address the human aspects of interaction, such as how a robot may understand, provide feedback and act as a social being in interaction with a human, to experimental studies and field implementations of human–robot collaboration ranging from joint action, robots practically and safely helping people in real world situations, robots helping people via rehabilitation and robots acquiring concepts from communication. This volume reflects current trends in this exciting research field.

  $149.00

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  The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin

  The idea that we might be robots is no longer the stuff of science fiction; decades of research in evolutionary biology and cognitive science have led many esteemed scientists to the conclusion that, according to the precepts of universal Darwinism, humans are merely the hosts for two replicators (genes and memes) that have no interest in us except as conduits for replication. Richard Dawkins, for example, jolted us into realizing that we are just survival mechanisms for our own genes, sophisticated robots in service of huge colonies of replicators to whom concepts of rationality, intelligence, agency, and even the human soul are irrelevant.Accepting and now forcefully responding to this decentering and disturbing idea, Keith Stanovich here provides the tools for the "robot's rebellion," a program of cognitive reform necessary to advance human interests over the limited interest of the replicators and define our own autonomous goals as individual human beings. He shows how concepts of rational thinking from cognitive science interact with the logic of evolution to create opportunities for humans to structure their behavior to serve their own ends. These evaluative activities of the brain, he argues, fulfill the need that we have to ascribe significance to human life.We may well be robots, but we are the only robots who have discovered that fact. Only by recognizing ourselves as such, argues Stanovich, can we begin to construct a concept of self based on what is truly singular about humans: that they gain control of their lives in a way unique among life forms on Earth—through rational self-determination.

  $26.27

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  Imitation and Social Learning in Robots, Humans and Animals: Behavioural, Social and Communicative Dimensions

  Mechanisms of imitation and social matching play a fundamental role in development, communication, interaction, learning and culture. Their investigation in different agents (animals, humans and robots) has significantly influenced our understanding of the nature and origins of social intelligence. Whilst such issues have traditionally been studied in areas such as psychology, biology and ethnology, it has become increasingly recognised that a 'constructive approach' towards imitation and social learning via the synthesis of artificial agents can provide important insights into mechanisms and create artefacts that can be instructed and taught by imitation, demonstration, and social interaction rather than by explicit programming. This book studies increasingly sophisticated models and mechanisms of social matching behaviour and marks an important step towards the development of an interdisciplinary research field, consolidating and providing a valuable reference for the increasing number of researchers in the field of imitation and social learning in robots, humans and animals.

  $54.46