As the Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Professor Daniela Rus is uniquely positioned to address both the present state and future of robotics. Professor Rus, who runs the Distributed Robotics Laboratory at CSAIL in addition to her other duties, has made it her life’s work to design, build, and test robots that can be integrated into everyday life. Her group has created machines that can fold like origami, swim like fish, reconfigure their structure at will, read human brain signals, and much more. Indeed, Professor Rus says on her website that she imagines a world where robots are as ubiquitous as cellphones are today.
Stemming from that vision, Professor Rus’s new book, The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots, acts as a guided tour of a roboticist’s mind. She provides a view of the future from one who knows the present state of the field and offers clear-eyed recommendations of how to think about this exciting technology. With approachable language and personalized description, Professor Rus presents the myriad ways robots might develop and what the future of intelligent machines might look like, along with a realistic assessment of the challenges remaining in the field and the responsibility roboticists have to apply their work in service of the greater good. “If this revolution is correctly and intelligently steered,” Professor Rus says, “smart machines have the potential to improve the quality of human life as dramatically as the plow.”
In the book’s introduction, Professor Rus describes how her interest in robots was sparked at a young age when she dreamed of robotic solutions to everyday frustrations and inconveniences, like shoes to make her jump higher or walk farther without tiring. This passion for using robots to improve life has extended into her adult work, where Professor Rus rarely meets a situation that cannot be improved via robots. In the first section of The Heart and the Chip, Professor Rus goes through how robots might integrate into our lives by extrapolating on technology that exists today. For example, eschewing the traditional science fiction idea of bulky, thunderous exoskeletons, Professor Rus envisions soft, lightweight robotic clothing which could add strength or monitor vitals, offering independence to the elderly, expert-level training to athletes, or assistance in dangerous environments. Consider how robots might extend human reach: serving as eyes in impossible-to-reach locations, hands in inhospitable environments, and even remote noses in distant locations, like the streets of Paris. Professor Rus explains how the robots of tomorrow might lift us into the air, follow commands as if by magic, assist and enhance our human senses, reconfigure into whatever shape we need, and help us reclaim the most valuable resource of all: time.
However, as Professor Rus outlines in the next section of the book, these lofty goals are not quite within our grasp. Walking the reader through the logistical realities of creating robots with the technology available to us today, Professor Rus defines what a robot is, describes how a robot is trained and crafted, and then offers a “Technologist’s To-Do List” of areas that can be improved to bring about her imagined future of widespread robotics. While this section delves into some technical terms, Professor Rus translates the computer science jargon with straightforward language so even those with no coding experience can understand the basic building blocks of modern robots and the challenges yet to be overcome. Professor Rus discusses the need for better sensors, batteries, and muscles along with the necessity for robots to interact more naturally with humans, both in action and with language. This section also offers an antidote to fears about this technology, as Professor Rus makes it clear that robots—and the AI that guides them—are still limited in key areas, often areas where humans excel. General AI intelligence is still a distant goal. But the tools we have to create useful robots that can be deployed in real-life applications are improving rapidly, which means there are important considerations that roboticists like Professor Rus must keep in mind.
The third section of the book explores these considerations and the responsibility that arises when inventing robotic solutions. Professor Rus describes how her “nightmare” is not the dystopian robot overlords from the movies but one in which we end up with a “massive, complex system we depend on but don’t understand, along with mountains of discarded technology and electronic waste.” But with the unflagging optimism that defines her work, Professor Rus offers a multi-pronged approach of how we can avoid that and other negative outcomes. She encourages us as a society to gather experts, compile a diversity of perspectives, and ensure a “cross-societal buy-in” similar to what was deployed for the Covid vaccine rollout or the Apollo missions. She imagines an eleven-point framework of qualities by which to build robots and AI systems to maximize the greatest possible good: safe, secure, assistive, causal, generalizable, explainable, equitable, economical, certified, sustainable, and impactful. She calls for improved education—for children and adults—in both computational thinking and computational making, hoping to democratize the gains of AI efficiency and help the children and workers of today prepare for jobs we can hardly imagine that might appear in the coming years. She invites the reader to imagine robotic solutions to some of humanity’s greatest challenges: global warming, human health, food security, exploration, and more.
Fundamentally, Professor Rus aims in the final section of her book to dispel any lingering concerns that robots are going to take away jobs. Referencing well-established research and centuries of technological evolution, Professor Rus points out that historically, machines have not replaced jobs but automated tasks such that the work itself is transformed. Take, for example, the computer, which between 1980 and 2015 eliminated an estimated 3.5 million jobs while creating 19 million more. The robots Professor Rus would like to see deployed in the world could, with thoughtful intention and application, automate repetitive and data-intensive work, freeing up human minds and hands everywhere to do more satisfying, imaginative work. “My studies of robots and AI have only strengthened my regard for our kind,” Professor Rus says, making it clear how necessary and integral people will be to the future she imagines.
The Heart and the Chip is sure to satisfy many potential audiences. Business professionals or entrepreneurs looking to implement robotics into their practices will find plenty of ideas. Futurists are sure to delight in a fellow mind. And anyone worried about AI and robotics will find comfort in Professor Rus’s positive outlook and practical recommendations for responsible action. But the central theme of the book is summarized in the title. Robots are not a panacea solution or an all-powerful technology. They are tools that, when implemented correctly, can vastly improve and complement human existence. Robots—the chip—can provide the means, but its people—the heart—who provide the why. Human beings are incredible creatures, Professor Rus argues, with true superpowers like creativity, innovation, and vision. Far from limiting our potential, if society follows the path laid out by experts like Professor Rus, robots might actually help us reach it.
The Heart and the Chip is now available anywhere books are sold. For more about Professor Rus and her new book, listen to her podcast interview with CSAIL Alliances or visit her website.
