February 10, 2004, 7PM | Room A118 Pendergrass Library / Veterinarian Hospital [Directions...]
Robotics: [Film] [Issues] [Science] [Resources]

Robotics

Film: Into the Body

This is the age of new technology - robotics, gene therapy, artificial intelligence, genetically modified foods, cochlear and other body implants. We are developing the potential to fundamentally change ourselves as a species. But what is appropriate and inappropriate? What does it mean - and what will it mean - to be human? Read the complete film description ››

Focus on Issues: The Natural and the Artificial

Science and technology today provide powerful instruments for understanding and controlling not only the world around us, but ourselves as well. Mankind has always harbored an ambivalent attitude towards our sometimes daunting powers to understand and to control the natural world. In the 1960s, the novelist Norman Mailer wrote: "There is a primitive residue in man which is far from convinced, face to face with the presence of a machine, that the engine is not possessed with a variety of spirits benign and wicked. An enormous anxiety of technology remains." The roots of the ambivalence are the exhilaration of technical creativity--being godlike--and the fear of divine retribution for that hubris... Read the complete essay [html]›› [pdf]››

Focus on Science: Robotics

Can we create something that will mimic human capabilities? This question has two sides. The first involves building some external contraption, an artificial human that will perform our tasks for us-carrying water, striking our enemies, playing chess. The second has us designing internal replacements for malfunctioning or defective human parts-hearts, kidneys, ears... Read the complete essay [html]›› [pdf]››

Research More:

Best Robotics Film:
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Best Robotics Reading:
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Best Robotics Web Site:
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