Quotations about robotics

Aristotle If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that benefits it, just as the creations of Daedalus move by themselves…, then there would be no need of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for their lords.

Allen Newel From where I stand it is easy to see the science lurking in robotics. It lies in the welding of intelligence to energy. That is, it lies in intelligent perception and intelligent control of motion.

Rod Grupen At bottom, robotics is about us. It is the discipline of emulating our lives, of wondering how we work.

Rob Spencer Got a dirty, dangerous, dull job? Let a robot do it and keep your workers safe.

Marvin Minsky We wanted to solve robot problems and needed some vision, action, reasoning, planning, and so on…. Eventually, robots will make everything.

David Hanson Making realistic robots is going to polarize the market. You will have people who love it and some people who will really be disturbed.

John McCarthy Every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it. No robot has ever been designed that is ever aware of what is doing; but most of the time, we aren’t either.

John McDermott To be useful, a system has to do more than just correctly perform some task.

Chuck Gosdzinski The top two awards don’t even go to robots.