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Photo of Rodney A. Brooks RODNEY A. BROOKS

Rodney A. Brooks is professor of computer science and engineering and associate director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass.

For two years at MIT's Cog Shop, Brooks and his colleagues have been building Cog, the prototypical humanoid robot. Cog is capable of learning from his experiences, as humans do, and Brooks hopes that his robot eventually will have the intelligence of a six-month-old baby. If Brooks is successful, Cog will become the most advanced robot in existence. Ultimately, Brooks envisions creating robots that can operate in the world like human beings and even outperform them. For more about Rodney Brooks, his projects and papers: www.ai.mit.edu/people/brooks/brooks.html. To visit the Cog Shop, learn more about the project, view photos and review a glossary of technical terms: http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/cog.html.

See Rodney Brooks' answers to Ask the Scientists questions.




 

Scientific American Frontiers
Fall 1990 to Spring 2000
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