Daniel H. Wilson

Biography:

Daniel H. Wilson earned a Ph.D. from the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, where he has also received Masters Degrees in robotics and data mining. He has worked in top research laboratories, including Microsoft Research, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Intel Research Seattle. Daniel currently lives in a fully wired smart house. He is the author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising and Where's My Jetpack? as well as a contributing editor to Popular Mechanics magazine.

Past Shows:

	Robots Today and Tomorrow
	Sunday February 10, 2008

Roboticist Daniel H. Wilson returned to the program to talk about the current state of robotics and how robots could be used to battle zombies, invading aliens, werewolves, and ninjas. He detailed the latest evolution in robots that are in the marketplace today, like the Roomba vacuum and automated lawnmowers. According to Wilson, one of the keys to advancements in these "consumer robots" is the ability to have an "emergency stop," both to act as a human override and to assure consumers of safety. He also noted the increasing trend of people being forced to "structure their environment" to accommodate the robots working around them. Wilson talked about some hypothetical or off-kilter uses for robots, as detailed in his latest book How to Build a Robot Army. One such scenario was a zombie outbreak, where he suggested that robots would be ideal since they are immune to becoming zombies, but must also be liquid-proof so that they can destroy their undead attackers. He said th ... More
Host: Ian Punnett