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Engineering Human-Machine Relationships

Moderator: Barbara Liskov
Leslie Pack Kaelbling Rodney A. Brooks Martin Schmidt '83, PhD '88 Victor Zue ScD '76: May 23, 2003; Running Time: 1:31:55

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

If you feel inseparable from your laptop and cell phone today, just wait a few years: the connection between people and machines is about to get much, much closer. This theme underlay much of the panel discussion. Victor Zue’s computers can take subtle visual and conversational cues from a speaker, and respond appropriately (even switching languages at the drop of a hat!). Leslie Pack Kaelbling described the perfect office mate, the “Enduring Personal Cognitive Assistant,” which will someday remind you to press forward on a neglected project or to soothe the ruffled feathers of a snubbed colleague. Martin Schmidt’s lab is finding ways to plug the tiniest circuitry into a boot or a sneaker to harvest the body’s energy for lightweight battery power out in the field. And Rodney Brooks showcased Kismet, a robot who can babble like an appreciative baby and bat her eyes in response to compliments. He also showed a remarkable video of another invention: a prosthetic leg that understands how it’s being walked on and adapts. As a woman tries the leg out for the first time, she laughs with sheer delight.

Lecture Details

Location: Kresge Auditorium

About the Speakers

Moderator: Barbara Liskov

Ford Professor of Engineering

Leslie Pack Kaelbling

MIT Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Associate Director Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

Rodney A. Brooks

Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
Panasonic Professor of Robotics

In addition to his multiple roles at MIT, Rodney Brooks is Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of iRobot Corporation. He received degrees in pure mathematics from the Flinders University of South Australia and the Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1981. Brooks is a Founding Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).