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A roboticist imagines life with robots that sell us products, drive our cars, even allow us to assume new physical form, and more. With robots, we are inventing a new species that is part material and part digital. The ambition of modern robotics goes beyond copying humans, beyond the effort to make walking, talking androids that are indistinguishable from people. Future robots will have superhuman abilities in both the physical and digital realms. They will be embedded in our physical spaces, with the ability to go where we cannot, and will have minds of their own, thanks to artificial intelligence. In Robot Futures , the roboticist Illah Reza Nourbakhsh considers how we will share our world with these creatures, and how our society could change as it incorporates a race of stronger, smarter beings. Nourbakhsh imagines a future that includes adbots offering interactive custom messaging; robotic flying toys that operate by means of “gaze tracking”; robot-enabled multimodal, multicontinental telepresence; and even a way that nanorobots could allow us to assume different physical forms. Nourbakhsh examines the underlying technology and the social consequences of each scenario. He also offers a counter-vision: a robotics designed to create civic and community empowerment. His book helps us understand why that is the robot future we should try to bring about.

An account of conflicts within engineering in the 1960s that helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history. In the late 1960s an eclectic group of engineers joined the antiwar and civil rights activists of the time in agitating for change. The engineers were fighting to remake their profession, challenging their fellow engineers to embrace a more humane vision of technology. In Engineers for Change, Matthew Wisnioski offers an account of this conflict within engineering, linking it to deep-seated assumptions about technology and American life. The postwar period in America saw a near-utopian belief in technology's beneficence. Beginning in the mid-1960s, however, society—influenced by the antitechnology writings of such thinkers as Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford—began to view technology in a more negative light. Engineers themselves were seen as conformist organization men propping up the military-industrial complex. A dissident minority of engineers offered critiques of their profession that appropriated concepts from technology's critics. These dissidents were criticized in turn by conservatives who regarded them as countercultural Luddites. And yet, as Wisnioski shows, the radical minority spurred the professional elite to promote a new understanding of technology as a rapidly accelerating force that our institutions are ill-equipped to handle. The negative consequences of technology spring from its very nature—and not from engineering's failures. “Sociotechnologists” were recruited to help society adjust to its technology. Wisnioski argues that in responding to the challenges posed by critics within their profession, engineers in the 1960s helped shape our dominant contemporary understanding of technological change as the driver of history.

With the publication in 1994 of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Science: An Investment in the Future (the FAMOS report), the National Research Council launched the series Physics in a New Era, its latest survey of physics. Each of the six area volumes in the survey focuses on a different subfield of physics, describing advances since the last decadal survey and suggesting future opportunities and directions. This survey culminated in 2001 with the publication of the seventh and final volume, Physics in a New Era: An Overview. Since the publication of the FAMOS report, the developments in atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) science have been amazing. Significant advances in areas such as cooling and trapping, atom and quantum optics, single-atom and single-molecule detection, and ultrafast and ultra intense phenomena, along with the emergence of new applications, made it clear that an update of the FAMOS report was needed. With support from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, the Committee for an Updated Assessment of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Science was formed. The committee's statement of task reads as follows: The committee will prepare a narrative document that portrays the advances in AMO science and its impact on society. This report highlights selected forefront areas of AMO science, emphasizing recent accomplishments and new opportunities, identifies connections between AMO science and other scientific fields, emerging technologies, and national needs, describes career opportunities for AMO scientists. To accomplish its task and at the same time reach a broad audience, the committee decided to present its report in the form of a brochure highlighting selected advances, connections, and impacts on national needs. An exhaustive assessment of the field, which will fall within the purview of the next decadal survey, was not the goal of the update. The committee would like to express its gratitude for the informative interactions it had with many scientists and policy makers. Many colleagues completed a questionnaire and suggested topics to be included in this report. The final selection of topics was made in accordance with the criteria set forth in the statement of task. While this report was still being written, the tragic events of September 11, 2001, occurred. AMO science and its applications have already played and will continue to play a central role in our nation's response to terrorist threats from conventional as well as chemical or biological weapons. Some of the technology discussed in this report in the chapter \"AMO Science Enhancing National Defense\" was used successfully for the U.S. military response in Afghanistan-the Global Positioning System (GPS) and laser-guided munitions are just two examples. AMO science will also enable the development of early detection techniques that will help to neutralize the threat from biological and chemical agents.

If you think the future is a mystery, think again. With a solid foothold in realism, an extraordinary insight into scientific and technological developments, and a dry sense of humor, Nobel laureate Professor Gerard 't Hooft confidently dissects fact from fiction and shows us what our future might really hold. Professor 't Hooft takes the reader firmly by the hand and, within the boundaries of solid physics and proven laws of nature, takes us on a ride into the world of the future, which holds remarkable surprises for us all. “Do you dream of intergalaxy space travel, time warps, and mini-mes?” 't Hooft asks. “Then please, get yourself some more science fiction books, for fiction it is. But for those who are interested in the real world, let me tell you what we CAN expect for the future.” We meet robots with a sense of irony, ride elevators into space, and build floating cities; let us just say that Playing with Planets, which is translated from the original Dutch edition by Professor 't Hooft's daughter Saskia, supports the old adage that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.