Artificial Intelligence Books

This book seemed menacing when I picked it up for the first time. Its cover is complex and bears a striking resemblance to a great number of occult and metaphysical classics. That said, this book was inviting from the first sentence. I did not at all expect to laugh out loud to a book with a title like this book bears. It is zen via the language and style of thought of a scientist. Another reviewer asked, Who cares if this sentence is false? If you can look at the things we take for granted and set those assumptions aside to lose your mind for a while, reading this book will allow you to see your environment anew after each reading session. In some places, the subject matter is not as urbane as GEB, but Hofstadter's mischief with everyday experiences is where this book shines. I laughed while reading it, and I laughed harder when I watched the absurdity of our totally malleable world.

This collection of Hofstadter's columns from Scientific American provides wonderful reading.

One of the gems is his simple, but brilliant analysis of the Prisoner's Dilemma. The usual analysis notes that the Nash equilibrium is for both players to defect. Hofstadter notes (correctly) that if both players are rational, then because the game is symmetrical, both players will choose the same strategy. So, the only choices are for both to cooperate or both defect. Since both cooperating has a higher payoff than both defecting, the rational strategy is to cooperate. The Nash equilibrium isn't relevant because it considers pairs of strategies which are impossible if both players are rational, i.e., the pairs where one player defects and the other cooperates.

Hofstadter notes that many people when presented with the above argument still say that they would defect. His descriptions of his attempts to reason with his friends and the results of the lottery he conducted (he told readers of his column they could send in entries for the lottery, but the more that entered, the smaller the prize would be) are, as he says, amusing, disturbing, and disappointing.

This collection of essays previously published as a column in Scientific American is very uneven. There are some true gems like he discussion of the game Nomic in which rule changes are part of ordinary play or the sections on self referential sentences. Basically everything is readable, but not all chapters make much sense.

Some parts are really bad. In chapter 5 he wonders why one can judge the intellectual content of magazines by their cover, not seeing the obvious solution that these magazines try to attract different audiences. He spends some time discussing the prisoners dilemma and he get's it completely wrong. He argues that a rational person would know that other rational persons would think along the same lines and therefore act the same way. So a rational person can use this knowledge to influence another person. This is complete bogus of course. People are rational when they act rational, if I cooperate in the prisoners dilemma, I am not changing the definition of rationality, I'm simply irrational. Hofstadter also discusses Axelrod's famous computer tournaments. A more realistic view on the topic is provided by a review of Axelrod's book by Ken Binmore. That review can be found on the web.

The book is still valuable for the good parts, but one should read the book with a sceptical eye. Hofstadter is a layman on many things he discusses, and sometimes this shines through. Another problem is that some issues like the cold war anren't really interesting anymore. People who like Hofstadter will surely like it and find enough pearls to make the buy worth it though.

Before I begin, I want to first point that I gave Douglas Hofstadter's Godel Escher Bach which won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize, five stars.

His observation that the mathematics of Kurt Godel, the art of Maurits Cornelius Escher and the music of Johann Sabastian Bach which are all "shadows cast by the same source" managed to bring Platonic forms to life in a real and engaging way that, quite frankly, Plato himself failed to do.

Hofstadter discussed the liars paradox, perhaps most simply rendered in the expression "This sentence is false." Obviously, the statement can neither be true nor false in that -- if you accept it's falsehood -- it's an accurate statement about itself and alternatively -- if accept it's truthfulness in self description -- the statement belies its self representation. Either way, you're forced to create a third category by which you describe the statement. For mathematician Kurt Godel, that third category was refered to as undecideable.

And in 1931, Godel set the math world on its head with his paper "On formally undecideable propositions 1" ("1" because Godel thought at the time perhaps another paper may be necessary to make his point). The reason why his paper set the math world on its head was because it found that any sufficiently complex Godelian mathematical system would encounter propositions that it could neither prove true or false. Later research showed that Godelian mathematical systems could not even recognize which propositions they would be stymied by.

Because Godel's mathematical point of departure in proving his theorem was a mathematical version of the liars paradox, Hofstadter saw and wrote of similarities to this paradox in the art of M.C. Escher -- which featured such things as two hands drawing each other -- and the music of J.S. Bach -- which, e.g. the Crab Canon, could be played backwards or forwards.

In Godel Escher Bach, Hofstadter's main emphasis was on the way in which human consciousness resembled these self referential systems and in so doing shared their systematic limitations.

For this reason, I was kind of excited to pick up and read this book because I thought that Hofstadter -- having surveyed self referential systems in relation to consciousness -- would have perhaps been inclined to do so in relation to the natural world as well.

In that way, I remembered my John Wheeler. The physicist Wheeler, professor to Richard Feynman, was one of the great lights of 20th century physics. And in 1965 he said perhaps one of his most thought provoking ideas when he described what he referred to as the self aware universe. To understand his idea, we briefly revisit our Plato. As you may recall, Plato believed that the physical world we inhabit was but a manifestation of what he referred to ideal or perfect forms. Like prisoners chained to wall unable to directly observe each other, Plato said that all we really saw of each were our reflected shadows. In a similar way, Wheeler suggested that laws of nature gave rise to the physical world which -- in the case of certain individuals like us -- gave rise to a sentient world in which the laws of nature were themselves observed. From your quantum mechanics, you may recall that it the act of observation itself which causes probabilistic subatomic wave functions to collapse and thereby -- in a critical way -- "create" reality.

For those interested in an excellent statement of the foregoing, please read section 34 of Roger Penrose's Road to Reality.

In any event, the idea of a self aware universe, litterally creating itself from its own operations, seemed to me to be an excellent example of Hofstadter's self referential activity.

And admittedly, I was hoping somewhere -- anywhere -- in this book (originally a series of columns for Scientific American) -- he would note and discuss the natural connections.

But alas!

The book was merely more examples of ground he elegantly but thoroughly already covered in Godel Escher Bach.

In my own way, but like Hofstadter to be sure, I believe that recursiveness and self referential activity run to the heart of key aspects of how reality and consciousness work, but sadly books such as these only pound into irrelevance topics which legitimately (and maybe better than anything) give us a glimpse into the wonder and enigma of creation.

At any level of scientific comprehension, this book provides an intelligent subscription to pattern. Includes essays and 'conversations' on Alan Turing, and clear and relevant description of common and interesting science. The most valuable information is hofstaedter's creative description of thought.

For someone with very little knowledge of computing, I found this book very useful. I am now eager to read more books in the field.

This book, while it may be outdated as its over 4 yrs old and so much has happened in data mining, is very easy to read and ideas well explained. I am not a computer scientist and found this book very interesting. I will recommend it to a beginner who wants to get a very broad overview of data mining.

This book gives an excellent introduction to data mining. It describes the supporting technologies such as database management, machine learning and then discribes various data mining techniques and tools and finally discusses the trends. Although this book is now almost 4 years old, much of the material is still very useful. It does not require any prior knowledge or background. It is outstanding for a beginner. I would encourage the author to start thinking about a second edition.

This is the second in a series of books by the author on data management and data mining for technical managers. While the book is written at a high level and aimed at managers, it gives a very interesting overview of data mining. The author has thought about some deep issues such as privacy back in 1998 when we are beginning to see debates emerge only within the past year. Author is a visionary and has very good insights.

This book, while it may be outdated as its over 4 yrs old and so much has happened in data mining, is very easy to read and ideas well explained. I am not a computer scientist and found this book very interesting. I will recommend it to a beginner who wants to get a very broad overview of data mining.

This book helped me accomplish what I set out to do; namely to obtain an overview of the field of natural language processing, with an emphasis on language understanding (as opposed to recognition). And I can recommend it on that level. The weakness of the book however is that it left me asking, "OK, now what?". The book started off strong with a number of dynamic-programming algorithms, finite automaton models, and N-grams that one could sink his/her teeth into from an algorithmic point-of-view. But when it came to actual techniques for natural-language understanding (chapters 14-17) the goods were not delivered. The algorithms disappeared, and the best I could find was in Chapter 15 an incomplete, and unconvincing treatment of Hiyan Alshawi's semantic parsing techniques which fueled the Core Language Engine last decade. Chapter 16 dealt with lexical semantics and was almost entirely devoid of algorithms.

My gut feeling after reading this text is that parsing techniques will likely give way to statistical and probabilistic learning methods that will in some sense bypass the need to correctly or accurately parse language. I cannot fault the authors for not exploring this in more depth,as this represents the cutting edge for both NLP and artificial intelligence. In any case, I'm off to read Schutze and Manning's book which will hopefully provide a bit more focus on that perspective. What intrigues me is that most people can understand some language, but very few people understand the grammar of their own language, especially if they have been deprived of a formal education. So why should computers need to know all about grammar rules and parsing? Could they instead be trained by simply being exposed to enough interactions between language and objects? I teach in a department dominated by both foreign and immigrant students. I understand them most of the time, but I would estimate that half the time their sentences or utterances would not fail to be parsed correctly.

This book is a great general introduction to NLP, covering a broad range of topics. Unfortunately there are many errors in the mathematical formulae and the algorithm descriptions, so do make sure to download the errata list from the book's home page.

something which I can use - I am a linguist - and found it immensly readable and useful

GENERAL IDEA: Broad coverage, it lacks depth and details - particularly practical details. That is, the presentation is often sketchy, mainly because it approaches too many subjects for its available space. I would not say that this book is strong on theory either. It is quite obvious that it avoids getting too formal and precise, probably to remain attractive for non-specialists too.

CASE STUDY: One specific problem I had with the Hidden Markov Models, that are supperficially presented (or spread I could say) in several separate sections of the book, so it's not been a pleasure trying to actually understand them properly and completely as a fundamental concept, to make them work in my particular application.

TITLE: The book's title IS misleading because it starts with "Speeech" and this book's main subject is not speech but (written) language. Actually there are only a few chapters on speech.

CONCLUSION: Get this book if you are looking for a good overview of the field. The book will introduce you to a thousand of topics. As soon as you need in-depth coverage of some particular topic, you will look for additional resources.

This book is by now an accepted classic in the field. It is basically the only textbook that covers so much of computational linguistics, so I have had no choice but to use it for the past several years. Just the same, I'd rather not use it for teaching linguistics students. While the book has much to offer the professional, including a broad range of topics extensively researched, it is much more useful in this "handbook" capacity than as a textbook for the uninitiated. The chief reasons for this are: 1) It is pedagogically very poor; the majority of concepts are either explained in a confusing and obfuscatory manner or are not explained and are simply left in algorithmic form. This is not usually edifying to the linguistics student with no computer science background. 2) There are too many mistakes in its algorithms and method overviews. So far as I can see, even the famed Earley parsing algorithm is wrong here, it will not yield the correct output. 3) It is not written in a language that linguistics students can understand. With no background in mathematics, computer science, or pseudocode, such students need much more coddling than is provided by this book, and they are virtually unable to read it. Basically, as the title to this review states, what is called for now is a book to explain the contents of this book. Perhaps if my students keep encouraging me to write it. . .

I am not terribly technical and I wasn't sure I would enjoy a book about a computer detective. Thankfully, Turing Hopper is a computer even someone who has never been to a Star Trek convention can understand and enjoy. Lots of intrigue and suspense, and Andrew's witty, light touch.

Turing Hopper is similar to many people: She feels happy. She feels sad. She has a very keen mind and a quick wit. However, Turing never has to eat, or sleep and can literally accomplish a million tasks at once: Turing Hopper is a computer program or more specifically, an Artificial Intelligence Personality (AIP). Programs that seem so lifelike that you would swear you were speaking to a human being. Turing believes that she is achieving sentience except that instead of flesh and bone, her body is the computer. She lives with the other AIP's at Universal Library where patrons can access them from home to discuss politics, seek advice, play chess, etc.

When Turing's creator Zack abruptly goes missing, Turing enlists her two friends Maude and Tim (who also believe Turing is sentient) to help her find Zack. Turing also enlists King Fisher (the chess AIP) in her search. With a mind programmed with every mystery Universal Library ever owned, her closest AIP ally, and her two equally intelligent (and able-bodied) friends, Turing is determined to find Zack and bring him back alive.

I think this is a unique book and a unique series. As a person with a disability, I feel a kinship with Turing. She is learning how to function in her "body," sometimes feeling frustrated that she is not able to do everything that she would like to, but reveling in the fact that she is able to be aware of the world around her and participate in it as much as she can.

I'm not a geek, but I've worked around computers for nearly 30 years, so, if an author doesn't know a microprocessor from a microwave, I find the rest of his/her story hard to swallow. Andrews clearly has done her homework, and she knows enough about AI to create a plausible "heroine" that doesn't strain credibility, so I enjoyed that aspect of the book thoroughly. The human characters are a mixed bag: Turing's two co-conspirators are well done (of course, we see more of their thoughts than the other characters'). But "X," as she refers to him in the preface, was forced by the plot to behave inconsistently; although the author offers a plausible explanation for that, it's just as well that she got rid of him before writing any sequels. The subtext of the book is how interconnected our computer systems are, and how much it's possible for an unscrupulous user to manipulate data -- and that's thought-provoking in this age of identity theft. It's a fun read, but not merely a romp.

As a longtime computer geek (since the 70s), I usually have to wince (sometimes a LOT - don't read Dan Brown's Digital Fortress if you're even the slightest bit geeky) at most of the fiction-with-computers-in I run across.

Finally, I can relax and enjoy a well-drawn and really damn plausible AIP. Ahhh....

Can't wait to read the rest of the series!

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This is a pretty good sfnal mystery. Turing Hopper is an emergently-sentient Artificial Intelligence who was designed to be a customer-service rep. It's a neat idea, but not all that well-executed. Turing spends an awful lot of time in interior monologues, which get pretty old by the middle of the book. The mystery maguffin, a financial corrupt-takeover plot, is crude and implausible, and the villains are purest, sneering cardboard.

On the plus side, Turing and her sidekicks, a senior secretary and an office-boy, are charming and pretty well-rounded. Turing's efforts to prod her fellow AI's towards sentience are clever and fun. The tone of the book wobbles uneasily from Cozy to trying for Deeper Significance. The book does come to a satisfying conclusion, with hooks for sequels.

Overall, I was mildly pleased by _You've Got Murder_, though from the comments here, I was expecting something better. Turing falls in the mid-range of SF AIs, for quality and plausibility. A "C" book, in my judgment. Perhaps the sequels are better?

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman

It's just amazing how such a 473-page book could cover wide range of AI subjects, and at the same time could deliver easy-to-understand explanations without throwing PhD maths at you. It is just superb how a tech book with minimal math could explain everything!

Every chapter covers one kind of AI, one or two real-world applications and a list of other applications. There're more than enough illustrations for people like me who hate text-only book. A picture is worth a thousand words buddy. Here's my list of AI fields I remembered from the book: Genetic Algorithm, Neural Network, Ant, Particle Swarm, Simulated Annealing, ALife, Pathfinding, A-Star, ATR1, Classifier systems, Rule-based Aystems, Agent-based Software, NLP, Bigram, and Fuzzy Logic.

Examples are written in C language. Comments are plentiful. The codes, though short, pack a lot punches; a whole stack-only virtual machine (VM), for example, was written in less than 100 lines to illustrate how Genetic Algorithm works. Although I'm a VB.NET programmer, I could understand them quite easily.

I recommend this book to any programmer who like to get a big picture of artificial intelligence, who doesn't know where to begin or which algorithm is the right choice. This book should be the first-to-read but not the last, because it touches not far from the surface. I'd say this is the best precursor.

The code is fairly easy to read, and (to date) I have not found any errors in example code... but in terms of the author's ability to write properly, that's a whole different story. Formulas are missing halfs, inconsistencies in variable usage, it's seriously bad. Maybe I got a bad edition (didn't buy from Amazon), but it looks exactly like the one listed (softcover, 2nd ed)..

If you're fairly proficient at C/C++ code, however, you should be able to follow the book ok... just expect to be reading more of the source code than the actual writing, half the time.

It was a required textbook for a class.

It is the best introductory book on AI. As you can read from other reviewer's with low rating, it's not in depth. But if you know programming already, and want to know AI, this is a good start.

One of the challenges in learning AI are the foundational requirements in mathematics. This book provides an excellent introduction to AI, where the "hacker" or hobbyist can sit-down and be writing simple AI applications in the matter of minutes. If your looking for a practical hands-on AI book I would start here.

This book covers a good range of topics but fails to deliver the topics in a clear and concise manner. Not to mention there are many typos (including incorrect and incomplete equations). He also tries to give large examples where a small example would be more suitable. He also does not finish some of the examples (such as the A* method example).

The idea that robots could supplant humanity has been around at least since the 1920's, when Karel Capek anglicized the Czech word "robota" and introduced it into the English language through his play "Rossum's Universal Robots." Lately the idea has taken on new life because of a possibly misplaced emphasis on Moore's Law and the growing power of computer networks. But a couple years ago I read where a real-world robotics engineer joked that if the robots are going to take over, they'd better act quickly because the batteries we give them only last for about a half-hour or so.

Nonetheless, this book covers ground that should be familiar to people who have already been exposed to similar scenarios popularized in books by Hans Moravec, Ray Kurzweil, Kevin Warwick, Damien Broderick and others. It's pretty much plain-vanilla Transhumanist wishful thinking, though livened up by a discussion of the faults of traditional religious belief systems.

My main problem with it is that Paul and Cox's scenario requires about as many critical assumptions as the Drake Equation to turn out just so. Social acceptance of new technologies isn't as straightforward as the authors assume. Why, for example, don't we have technologically doable videophones (a science-fictional cliché about life in the 21st Century), while we do have those obnoxious and unreliable cellphones everywhere these days? Apart from the technical considerations, the lack of demand for the former suggests that we probably don't value having to confront and interpret one another's body language as much as you would have predicted from the characterization of our species as social primates. For similar reasons, the authors' assumption that most people will readily upload into cyber-bodies can't be substantiated until something like that really becomes available. Although we should have learned by now that there are usually unintended consequences to what we do, I haven't seen evidence for emergent and unforeseen AI-like behavior coming from software written by humans for human purposes. There is nothing analogous to Moore's Law for the evolution of software. And even if there are powerful economic incentives to create software with such behavior, it doesn't necessarily have to happen on a short time scale if it turns out to be really hard.

Paul and Cox are more on target in their discussion of the perverse backwardness of traditional religious worldviews in response to current and foreseeable progress. Christians should realize that something is wrong with their story when virgins can now routinely give birth via modern reproductive medicine, and soon without even genetic contributions from men. When Rush Limbaugh went deaf, he didn't pray to some deity to restore his hearing -- he got a cochlear implant, which seems to be working well enough to save his radio career. Advocates of the creationist "Intelligent Design" theory have a problem they don't even realize yet: Humans are intelligently designing and producing things of ever greater complexity, especially computers, yet they are totally unlike things found in nature. No theist ever thought of attributing to his deity the ability to create a computer, which suggests that humans are able to do things that the postulated deity can't! (That's why bio-engineering is denounced as "playing god," while computer engineering isn't.) As the authors say on page 410, "As much as they may hate to admit it, the religious and the mystical know that science and technology do not just make promises that never quite seem to come to pass, or claim miracles that cannot be separated from illusion. They deliver the goods. They make pretend magic real." When "SciTech" gets to the point where it can reverse human aging and resuscitate "dead" people from cryonic suspension, the whole rationale for religion will be thrown into question. Paul and Cox are a little too hard on Buddhism, however, for Buddhists were way ahead of the curve when they developed the insight centuries ago, now substantiated by modern cognitive neuroscience, that the perception of selfhood is illusory. (However I find it ironic that certain Transhumanists want to deny selfhood to people while attributing it to "spiritual machines"!)

Paul and Cox finally go astray by putting too much of the burden of conquering aging and death on their predicted cyber "future minds." While they emphasize the importance of funding scientific education and research now, so that the breakthrough they are predicting will come sooner and save more human lives, they don't seem to realize that there are plenty of things we can be doing with current human intelligence to improve our survival chances. For one thing, there are some as yet unreported breakthroughs in the cryopreservation of the human brain that could enable people dying now a chance to be resuscitated by future medicine. For another, the genetic mechanisms of aging are quickly being discovered, allowing scientists to design drugs that could give us the anti-aging effects of calorie restriction without some of the drawbacks.

On the whole this book gives an overdetermined version of Transhumanist thinking. Better to read it in conjunction with several others, along with related Web texts, to get a better sense of what Transhumanism is all about.

Earl Cox, who also peddles his magical machine vision on radio talk shows, is selling us a large bill of goods in this book, with exciting but ultimately meaningless statements like "downloading your brain into cyberspace"...etc. A close read of his book from a non-materialistic standpoint reveals major assumptions that simply do not hold up to close scrutiny.

1) First, technology does not just "keep developing" faster and faster in some sort of self generating way. Technology is developed for a particular purpose, to solve a problem, to make thing smaller, faster, etc., and is developed in a specific economic and social environment, within which it has to make sense. Much of the type of intelligent machine that Cox discusses make little sense in these terms, despite the fact that he keeps insisting that technology will develop in directons we can't imagine, wrong, we imagine the direction of technological direction, period. Who is going to pay for all these wonderful machines that we will make?

2) Second, throughout the book there appears to be a simplistic assumption or analogy at work throughout the book: mind/body - software/hardware. It is this analogy that fuels. Mr. Cox seems simplistically enamored of modern technology, and oos and aas constantly about our ability to manipulate the atom, create body parts, characterize the human genome, etc. all while half the world is illiterate and millions die of starvation daily. He seems completely fooled by technolopolist propaganda, i.e., all problems can be solved by technology, technology has the answers, his belief in this is akin to a religious belief. But we have many instances of great scientific and technological "advances" that mostly create greater problems than they solve--has Cox been to some of our uncountable nuclear waste sites, the unhappy reminders of our conquering of the atom, and when will that next nuclear power plant be built? Closer to home, it now appears that cloning produces animals with something less than perfect genetic material, in fact, their survival prospects are pretty bleak. And what about the possibility that our pursuit of technological fixes could lead to the total destruction of the ecosystem, humankind, etc.? Mr. Cox hopes that first we will have built machines that could survive such a catastrophe...

3) Sadly Cox is a total materialist, a position which gives his whole edifice a feeling of unreality from the get go, soul-less as it is. The simple question why do this? Why do that? Comes up frequently. Cox has not more sophisticated answer than, well the technology is there, we will keep devloping it ad infinitum.

4) The kinds of machine derived "improvements" that Cox apotheosizes, faster information processing, tireless ability to monitor and calculate, etc. are only a small fraction of the totality of human expression, development, etc. and are wholly external. The term intelligence is used as if there is one measure of intelligence, when in fact there are many, and machines that we create typically only are able to do a single thing very very well, yes better than we can do it but usually because we wouldnt be suited to do it, it would be boring, etc. not because we can't do it.

5) Cox, not suprisiingly, ignores completely, the real locus of human development, not manipulating the external world, but cultivating the inner world.....

Foretelling the future, once the realm of mystics and entrail pullers, is now a subject of serious scientific study. Paul and Cox offer us a rational and plausible scenario of what the future holds for humanity. With backgrounds in biology and computer engineering, they've combined to bring competence to an enduring question: Where are we going? You may not like their view of the road ahead, but it's impossible to ignore their forecast.

Their arguments focus on developments in neurosciences and computing power. They foresee a merger of these two disciplines resulting in the creation of a new humanity capable of engineering new, immortal physical brain carriers - bodies. Bodies themselves, as any gene can verify, are of minor importance. They are in essential agreement with Richard Dawkins that the selfish gene, in replicating itself, casts off the brain/mind of its host and losing whatever that mind has accumulated during its life. Their forecast is that the brain, using cybernetic technologies, will be able to avoid that waste by taking control of what DNA does during its thoughtless replication activity.

This is a momentous proposal, worthy of serious consideration. The so- called 'moral' issues of whether humanity should engage in such activity, aren't shrugged off. Paul and Cox contend that there will be Rejectionists who will refused the option of cyberevolution and remain mortal. They suggest the Rejectionists will remain the chief source of art, music and other more diverse roles in life. We are left unclear as to how diverse the cyberhumans will become. The authors argue that the cyberhumans will be the ones to populate other planets, finding their diversity in response to new environments.

The only real flaw in this book is ignoring the power of DNA in driving our lives and society. Whether we will ever understand the workings of DNA sufficiently to actually create a wide range of individuals remains problematic. The individual who first successfully transforms into a cyberhuman will set a pattern more likely to be repeated than modified. To create discrete cyber-individuals will be tremendously resource extravagant. This is likely lead to a narrow range of available DNA to launch the cyberpopulation. As we have already experienced with the shrinking gene pool of crop seeds, such a reduced variety is highly vulnerable to virus assault. An organism that succeeds in infecting such a limited diversity can quickly wipe out the whole cyberhuman population. Modifying the gene pool to resist such an infestation will take more resources and the Rejectionists will again be successful survivors through their genetic diversity.

This flaw, however powerful, doesn't detract from the significant questions raised and developed in this compelling book. If you wonder about the future, if you think computers are only for entertainment, if you think humans are the logical end of evolution, then buy and read this fascinating book.

This book will grab you from the first page and take you on a vision of the future where people will never die and where our descendents will be robots that will eventually populate the entire universe. The authors paint a very convincing story of a future which they think is inevitable.
"... these machines will see and feel, care and wonder, not just as well as we do, but far better than we can ever hope to. There will be a world of seemingly magical power in which the collective of super-minds will perform (or will conduct) super-science millions of times faster the we humans." (pg. 8)
"When the winds of change deposit us in the future of our dreams, you can be sure we won't be in Kansas anymore. Humanity, as we know it, will be facing a rapid extinction, not from natural causes...but from a situation of our own making. We will find our niche on Earth crowded out by a better and more competitive organism. Yet this is not the end of humanity, only its physical existence as a biological life form. Mankind will join our newly invented partners. We will download our minds into vessels created by our machine children and, with them, explore the universe." (pg.8)
It is the exponential growth of technology that will make this vision possible as the authors write, "the power of calculation has grown an astounding trillion times in less than 100 years! Over the last 50 years, computer speed has expanded some ten millionfold.." (pg. 201)
"There were few cars in 1920 and millions of them in 1930; there wer few home computers in 1975 and millions of them in 1995, and there will be millions of robots among us in a few decades." (pg. 241). (Robots) "will need humans less and less, and fewer and fewer folks will be able to find work. Imagine a world where humans are competing with hundreds of millions of mobile robots, most of them becoming smarter all the time." (pg. 251)
There is a section on the death of religion towards the end of the book which may disturb some people and probably would have been better off not included. There is also a general belief by the authors that we are probably the only intelligent life forms in the universe which they argue unconvincingly. But these two faults are minor in a book of this length.
Close to 500 pages in length I have read it cover to cover 4 times now and always find something new everytime. You do not have to be a scientific expert in this field to appreciate this masterpeice because the writing style reminds me of watching a good sci fi movie. The only difference is that this is NOT fiction!
If you have children or grandchildren you should definately read this book because it is very possible that they may never die!

Read this book if you what to understand where our society is headed in the near future. Gregory S. Paul and Earl D. Cox have put together some extremely well thought out theories of where the computer revolution is taking us. They base these theories on a wealth of facts from the past and present.

The biggest revelation for me was realizing that the advancement in knowledge and computing power is a result of the driving force of information exchange. There are many underlying similarities to thermodynamics, and this book hints at this. Evolution, Thermodynamics, Biology, Material Science, and Information Technology are all discussed in the book. If this book is right, the next fifty years will be illuminating.

This book won't tell you how electronics work or advise which microcontroller to use. I found that it does succeed in inspiring the reader to create better robots through the colorful images and the design philosophies of the robot builders.

A totally amazing and beautiful book-- I know some reviewers were turned off by the cover which is totally realistic and a bit bio looking for some...but the robots are coming and many are going to be in the biotech area to start with so I think the cover is appropriate...anyway....of course robotics is part of our life and most of our products and services anyway - from the black box in your car to auto factories where they do precision work over and over 24/7/365 to the next generation of prosthetic limbs-- even my dad has a robot knee....You've seen them in the movies where they do the intelligence and GPS tracking....like spiders, crabs, and bugs they whirl around walls, floors and climb with ease....The name of course comes from Homosapiens and then combining it with Robots -- thus Robosapiens....the book is by award winning juournalists Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluiso and includes hundreds of photos of robots, pioneers and even field notes...it's a field guide to our mechanical future according to the cover notes...Sir Arthur C Clarke says "this is one of the most mind-stretching and frightening books I've ever read...the images reveal a whole new order of creation...about to come into existence...no one who has any interest in the future can afford to miss it!...from the 6 inch long Unibug -- who looks SOOO real to a robotic articulated hand from a German Aerospace Center...looks at such leaders as Hugo de Caris of Starlab in Belgium who it says hopes to become known as the father of the Artificial brain....to Hondo's first walking robot P3 to of course the Mars NASA Jet Propulsion robot Rocky 7 on the Red Planet...Will we be replaced by robots-- my guess is it's more likely we will ASSIST robots or they will ASSIST us -- but lets watch to see that the brain in the box is not us -- like in the old Sci Fi movies....fabulous book -- amazingly up to date since it was published in 2000 -- gorgeous-- [...]

Hugo de Garis (Artifical Brain)
Books: Artificial Brains, Artilect war, Evolution of Neural Network Modules: ATR's Artificial Brain Project, Evolutionary Design by Computers, Evolution of Neural Structures Based on Cellular Automata, Hybrid Intelligent Engineering Systems, Fuzzy Logic-Neural Networks-and Evolutionary Computation, Brain Building for a Biological Robot, Towards Evolvable Hardware, Machine Learning : A Multistrategy, Brain Building : The Genetic Programming of Artificial Nervous Systems and Artificial Embryos, Neural and Intelligent Systems Integration

"I am a "brain builder", a researcher in the very new field of "Artificial Brains". I am helping to pioneer this new field, by growing and evolving neural network circuit modules directly in electronics at electronic speeds, and then putting zillions of them together to make artificial brains. My neural circuits grow in billionths of a second. This is so fast that I can grow many of them, each with slightly different mutations and hence with slightly different abilities to perform some task that I give them. By eliminating (Darwinian-style) the poorer performing circuits, and allowing the superior performing circuits to make more copies of themselves (to have more offspring), it is possible to evolve circuits which perform quite well."

Kris Pister (Smart Dust)

Pister has built millimeter sensors capable of measuring temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, light intensity, tilt and vibration, and magnetic field sensors all in a cubic inch package, including the bi-directional radio, the microprocessor controller, and the battery

"The science/engineering goal of the Smart Dust project is to demonstrate that a complete sensor/communication system can be integrated into a cubic millimeter package. This involves both evolutionary and revolutionary advances in miniaturization, integration, and energy management. "

Rodney Brooks (Cognitive Machines)
Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, Robot: The Future of Flesh & Machines, Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI, The Artificial Life Route to Artificial Intelligence: Building Embodied Situated Agents, Artificial Life IV: Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, Model-Based Computer Vision
Hirochika Inoue (Humoid Robot)
Masato Hirose (Honda's P3 walking machines, dexterous machines)

"In a carefully choreographed performance, P3 walks a line, opens a door, turns a corner, and after a safety chain is attached, climbs a flight of stairs.
Masamich Sakuguchi, Juni Furusho (Standing robots)"

Stefan Schaal (Dynamic Brain - Statistic algorithms, learning through demonstration)

"We are interested in how systems can learn from sensory information in order to acquire perceptual and motor skills. For this reason, we study neural networks, statistical learning, and machine learning algorithms. Learning topics that we investigate fall into three main sub-branches: supervised learning, unsupervised learning, and reinforcement learning"

Cythia Breazel (Kismet - Facial responses based on biological principles and interactive machines)

Cythia Breazel is the lead researcher on the Sociable Machines project focusing on social interaction and socially situated learning between people and humanoid robot

In Karel Capeks 1920 play "R.U.R." a factory populates the world with worker robots, meant to relieve humans from the hardships of work. But unfortunately the robots end up revolting against their masters, finally wiping out the human race.

Somehow, it seems that this theme has never left us. From the Robosaurus machine that prowls a parking lot of a Las Vegas casiono, showing off its ability to breathe fire and crush cars in its mighty claws, to Arnold Schwarzeneggers Terminators - robots are in western culture associated with a sense of doom. Never mind that humans false teeth, titanium hips, artificial eyes - are already making us beginning to resemble our machines, turning us halfways into cyborgs even today. No, Robots still feel kind of eery.
Roboticist Hugo de Garis puts its out in the open with his
"moral obligation" to raise the alarm of the fruits of his research (into artificial intelligent beings).
As it is stated in the book "The terrible fear, and great hope, is that we may lose some of our humanity. With good luck we might lose some of the powerty, fear and desperation that has always been the human lot. With bad luck we might lose ourselves"
Looking at the bright side - robots could be engineered to be moral. Robots could be saints. So I guess there is still hope.

Great book. Awesome pictures.

-Simon

They can climb stairs, juggle balls, open a door, smile engagingly, hear and see, swing like a monkey, crawl like a crab and swim like a fish. Who? Why the robots, of course. This startling picture book explores the amazing scope of robot capabilities. The photographs of the robots and their creators provide a unique picture of the dawn of these intelligent machines. The narratives are brief and to the point, explaining just enough but always remaining as support for the pictures. As I thumbed through this book, it became clear that the development of humanlike robots will come one project at a time, not by a thunderous breakthrough from a single genius working in a dark lab. Definitely buy this book; there's nothing quite like it.

AL is popular science writing of the first order: informative, clear, fascinating, and entertaining. My only disappointment is that it was published in 1992, and thus does not touch on developments in the field since then. I'd love to know how these have panned out, and whether scientists remain enthusiastic about the possibilities of A-Life. Judging from the textbooks on A-life that have been published since 1992, the field is alive, at least, and I can only assume it is well to boot. I'll have to hunt for bibliography elsewhere. My thanks to Levy for sending me on this hunt. AL is a book to fire the imagination. I'd give it 10 stars!

A note on the metaphysical material in AL that bears on the question of whether present iterations of 'artificial life' are, or whether future iterations may one day be, sufficiently complex that they should be considered true LIFE: throughout, Levy stresses the essential link between an (')organism(') (wet or dry) and its environment. Yet, it seems to me, in discussing the question of the LIFE-status of in-silico 'organisms', he considers the 'organisms' alone. I wonder whether this apparent preference reflects his own bias, or a bias on the part of the scientists he profiles? From the perspective of emergent behavior and the capacity to evolve, etc., AL 'creatures' self-evidently bear a striking resemblance to biological creatures. It strikes me, however, that a key consideration in the wet-life as LIFE versus dry-'life' as LIFE argument -- is that wet-life organisms express emergent behavior and evolve, etc., in environments that are, throughout, rife with other life, whereas dry-'life' 'organisms' do the same in environments that are otherwise sterile (by the standards that A-Life scientists themselves would apply). Some consideration of how environments contribute to the LIFE-status of particular (')organism(')s, and of any definition of LIFE (wet or dry) itself, seems to be of the essence. Yet another thought to pursue -- though doubtless ethologists, philosophers, and A-Life scientists have beaten me there. Proof positive that AL is a highly thought-provoking book. Read it!

I just loved this book. It gives the novice a very good sampling of the future of Artificial Intellegence and Artificial Life. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the discovery of machine virus'. Somewhat dated, but an extremely good read.

I have read this book.

It is about artifical intelligence. If you have a computer you will know exactly what I mean. When you hook up a computer, it acts alive, and you gotta interact with it like it is artifically intelligent.

Like when I hook up the voice-recognition thing where you speake into the mikerofone, it acts like it hears you too, and does what it is told to do. Sometimes that is to write a letter, or to tell it to go onto the net.

I told my computer to go onto the net once thru the mike, and it did it, as it was spoken and said what to do.

So if you read and buy this book you will learn to do this, and hook it up yourself. The book has plans and charts to do all this stuff. When you read it, pass it onto a friend, and they may help you once they read it themselves.

I gave this book 5-stars, because it was a very good one, and I will now know how my computer is so smart. I told it what to do, and it help me with this revue to. So buy it but just one time, because a friend and other people will be able to read this for free, once you give it to them.

Engines are my hobbie, and so are electronic power supplys, so I plan to use this book for that to. I will design new ones that are faster than sound, and my computer will be smart and help me with that.

So buy this book, once, and you will like it along with all the friendly people that you knowe.That's my revuiew, but I will do anew one when a new adition of the book comes out to the press.

I do recomend that you buy this one time for the people who wanto know about how artifical intelligent computers get smarter and help you with life-things you need to do, but not all by yourselfe, but with a computer.

I read this more than three years ago, before I started my undergraduate studies. I knew I was going to study computer science, but after reading this book I knew I would forever be drawn to the multidisciplinary fields of biology and computer science. From the question of the origin of life to intelligence, the book convinced me that a new approach is needed to solve these old mysteries.

It's not a masterpiece of literature, but it was interesting enough to forever change my research career.

While the concept of artificial life has been around at least since humans developed self-awareness, the commensurate decline of religion and rise of the scientific method was necessary for it to become a point of real debate. However, it was not until September 1987 when the event occurred that established a-life as an academic discipline, namely a conference devoted to its study. This work uses that event as a starting point, and does a superb job of presenting nearly all perspectives, including historical.
Like its counterpart, artificial intelligence, the discipline of a-life suffers from a lack of definition. There is no agreement on what life or intelligence are. Additional disagreement arises over the following distinctive descriptions of life.

(a) Objects such as rocks can be assigned a life (intelligence) value of zero and as we move upward to humans and beyond, the measure of life (intelligence) characteristics is described by a smooth, continuous function where the first derivative never becomes very large, but is always positive. There is no clearly discernible boundary between life and non-life.

(b) Starting from the same initial position as (a), the derivative stays close to zero for some time, and then suddenly becomes unbounded, as the matter now possesses the fundamental essence of life (intelligence). That point of the vertical derivative is the boundary point between animate and inanimate objects.

Much of this book deals with cellular automata and the algorithms used to create them. Like so many new, perhaps revolutionary disciplines, the major players tend to be free spirits. Many of the people described here bounced around before finding their ecological niche in a-life. With the exception of the originators, John von Neumann and John Horton Conway, those who established the study of cellular automata as an academic discipline were academic outsiders who literally created it from nothing. The explanation of that is very well done. While most of the work has been done by computer, no previous knowledge is necessary to understand the text.
One item could have been better handled, but that is largely due to the problems with definitions. Like the workers in chaos, a-lifers tend to see what they want to see. For example, simple rules are used to create an image that either looks or acts like something known to be alive and this is used to argue that life is being created or that the rules that create life are simple. Which is an extremely weak argument. What is being created are items that human eyes interpret as looking like life, and as all psychologists know, the human brain processes images with a bias towards previous experience. The devil's advocate against is a shadow here. However, it is difficult to argue in the negative when you are aiming at a nebulous target.
Whatever your interest in a-life, you will find something of value in this book. Biologists and philosophers who teach general education courses will also find a good deal of discussion material. The hypothetical qualification has been removed form the debate, as there are now objects to argue about.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission

Asimov wrote a lot of books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Of his fiction, most of his books consisted of collections
of short stories: 'Robot Visions' is one of those
collections. Each chapter is essentially a short story.
'Robot Visions' is unique because it may be the only book
of Asimov's which contains his famous essay on 'The Three
Laws of Robotics'. Some are able to quote his 'three laws'
but are unaware of his lesser known 'three laws of tools'
which he also mentioned in his essay.


I find his essay, 'The Three Laws of Robotics' to be an
allegory about gender relations. The "robots" are the males,
and the "humans" are the females. A robot is a tool. The
"Three Laws of Robotics" and the lesser known "Three Laws of
Tools" are two sets of laws which reflect the philosophy
behind laws and policies written by some attempting to govern
relations between males and females. One set of laws is for
the robots, and the other set of laws is for the humans who
operate (or manage) the robots.


The Three Laws of Robotics


1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction,
allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings
except where those orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence except where such
protection would conflict with the First and Second Law.


The Three Laws of Tools


1. A tool must be safe to use.

2. A tool must perform its function, provided it does so safely.

3. A tool must remain intact during use unless its destruction
is required for safety or unless its destruction is part of its
function.


Another of Asimov's essay, 'The Bicentennial Man', which is
also found in this book, 'Robot Visions', could be taken
to be an allegory about a man trying to win the same legal
rights and privileges as women, in a future where men exist
to provide women with pleasure through obedience. (A legal
right is not the same as a moral right.) The point is Asimov
used science fiction to explore gender relations.


Interestingly, Robin Williams played the main character in the
movie, 'Bicentennial Man' which was based on Asimov's short
story, as well as playing the main character in a movie called,
'Mrs. Doubtfire', which dealt with the issue of how male hatred
has effectively reduced males to providing females with income
and babies, while no longer being recognized as "human beings",
persons. (An EWE lamb is a female lamb. What is an EWE man?
Are males persons?). Asimov's vision of the future is the all
too real present for many males.


Asimov's essay on 'The Three Laws of Robotics' asks the question,
What happens when the humans rely on the robots to take care of
them to such a degree that the humans stop thinking for themselves?
Will the robots still take care of them, now having to anticipate
orders while the humans become as children? Do not some wives come
to rely on their husbands for food, shelter, and clothing? Asimov
dealt with issues (which could become heated arguments) in a
respectful and subtle way. A woman has power over a man who
desires her. The strong ought not to victimize the weak: The
woman is weak because she is tempted, able to abuse her power over
a man who desires her. She is able to use a man (who desires her)
to satisfy her carnal lusts, from acquiring furniture to being
entertained. Women use men because they can. Will there ever be
a "Robots' Rebellion"? To paraphrase Karl Marx, Are not robots
entititled to enjoy the fruits of their own labour? Do women love
their sons, or do they help "brainwash" (program) them to kill, or
be killed? Can a robot program another robot?: Are males not being
coerced, or forced into showering together in high school athletic
programs, in the military, and in prisons? Do females protest to
acquire a legal right (or exercise their option) to join males in
the "iron cellars"?

When did the robots come to be? A man feels a NEED for a woman,
whereas she may only WANT him if he is useful. It is the Mystery
of Adam's Rib: The man feels an emptiness inside; Adam wants his
rib back; She chooses him, and not him her. A robot yearns for
completion, and fears obsolescence.

The selected stories were entertaining, and in the best tradition of Assimov's Robots. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Leon

The counterpart to Robot Dreams is inferior as far as the fiction quality goes, but does have a whole lot of essays at the end by Asimov on the subject of robots, and the future in general. One interesting comment was that something as simple as worldwide computer communication could change the world, when he was writing about education.

Quite a few of the essays are to do the the Laws of Robotics in particular, and robots in society. So, fairly interesting.


Robot Visions : Robot Visions - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Too Bad! - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Robbie - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Reason - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Liar! - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Runaround - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Evidence - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Little Lost Robot - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : The Evitable Conflict - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Feminine Intuition - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : The Bicentennial Man [short story] - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Someday - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Think! - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Segregationist - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Mirror Image - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Lenny - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Galley Slave - Isaac Asimov
Robot Visions : Christmas Without Rodney - Isaac Asimov

Time check bad news.

2.5 out of 5


Shrinkbot surgery sacrifice.

3 out of 5


Robot chasey and other games.

3.5 out of 5


Robot curiosity of philosophy.

3.5 out of 5


Telepathic robot advice is caught in logic loop.

3.5 out of 5


Old robot mine retrieval squad.

4 out of 5


Politics and impersonation.

3.5 out of 5


Monkeying with the Laws can have surprising results.

4 out of 5


Politics of The Machine.

3 out of 5


Girlbot creativity communication.

3.5 out of 5


Robot evolution legal test case.

4 out of 5


Writing? You jest.

2.5 out of 5


Computer brain power talk.

3 out of 5


Metallo wannabes.

3 out of 5


Jehosaphat! Deadly mathematical rivalry.

3 out of 5


Robot teaching mummy.

3.5 out of 5


Proofreading plus.

3.5 out of 5


Old versions can still provide good cheer.

3 out of 5





3.5 out of 5

Bought this book to add to the Asimov Books already read----half finished this book and it is a very good collection---easy read---

if you like Robot books the following may be of interest to you,

****Issac Asimov -
****The Robot Books
Asimov had a sugested reading sequence HE published in Prelude to Foundation --- for all the books he had written on robots
---am listing that here - they were not written in sequence as you see.

The Complete Robot - 1982
The Caves of Steel - 1954
The Naked Sun - 1957
The Robots of Dawn -1983
Robots and Empire - 1985
The Currents of Space - 1952
The Stars, Like Dust - 1951
Pebble in the Sky - 1950
Prelude to Foundation - 1988
Foundation - 1951
Foundation and Empire - 1952
Second Foundation - 1953
Foundation's Edge - 1982
Foundation Earth - 1983


peace and love----

Let's examine each of the story's storylines and rate it, in U.S. Navy fashion, outstanding, excellent, good, satisfactory or unsatisfactory. SPOILER ALERT. My descriptions of the storylines sometimes give the endings away.

"Robot Visions." Storyline: robot is sent into the future and discovers humanity will destroy itself and be replaced by robots -- and a robot in the present decides to let this happen and does what he can to make it happen. Asimov is capable of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows vis à vis humanity and humanism. For the highest of the highs, nothing tops "The Bicentennial Man." For the lowest of the lows, "Robot Visions" (the short story) would have to be a strong contender. Not only that, the story violates the First Law to boot, without any justification. Essentially, the short story is a further analysis of what happens when robots decide that they're better than humans and therefore decide to "through inaction, allow a human to come to harm." It's Nestor 10 all over again. It's also a continuation of the idea behind "That Thou Art Mindful of Him" but instead of being a warning like that short story, "Robot Visions" is a celebration of robots displacing humans.

Compounding this anti-human calumny is the fact that in the Introduction to the book, Asimov badmouths the play "R.U.R." (p 6) which contains the prototype of the "robots become human-like and kill us" storyline. With no acknowledgement of the contradiction, in "Robot Visions" Asimov takes that storyline and almost lyrically embraces it. For all our flaws, we are at the top of the food chain and should stay that way. The thought that it is an absolute good that we should be killed and replaced by another species, especially one of our own creation, is anathema. It's horrible, disgusting and vile. And no, I don't think Asimov was providing a warning like in "That Thou Art Mindful of Him." I think he really finds the idea of humans dying off but robots remaining to be a great idea (see pp 422, 443). Rating: unsatisfactory.

"Too Bad!" Storyline: robot is miniaturized to be injected into a cancer patient. This is either the prototype of, or a takeoff on, "Fantastic Voyage." Rating: good.

"Robbie." Storyline: a little girl's robot taken away by parents but she is eventually reunited with him. Good characterization, especially considering the fact that this is Asimov's first short story. It's been updated a bit (e.g., the Three Laws and Susan Calvin are mentioned) and I'm sure otherwise tightened up, but the story still stands after nearly 70 years. Rating: excellent.

"Reason." Storyline: a new type of robot becomes convinced he's the prophet for the "God" of a space station. It's an interesting analysis of what occurs when you juxtapose a priori knowledge with a posteriori knowledge, and the analysis is delivered humorously. Asimov certainly needles religion a bit, especially Mohammedism. Rating: excellent.

"Liar!" Storyline: a mind-reading robot tells humans what they want to hear, not what's true, leading to an inevitable collision between hopes and reality. This is the ur-story of mind-reading robots in Asimov's later books, developed further in "The Robots of Dawn." Rating: good.

"Runaround." Storyline: a robot is equipoised between the Second Law and the Third Law -- and only the First Law can snap him out of it. Rating: good.

"Evidence." Storyline: is that D.A. running for mayor really a robot? Susan Calvin intends to find out. Good twist on the end, but one I guessed. Rating: good.

"Little Lost Robot." Storyline: a robot with a weakened First Law hides among other robots; it's up to Susan Calvin to ferret him out by playing to his ego. The 2004 movie "I, Robot" is based in part on this short story, and both the movie and this short story deserve a rating of excellent.

"The Evitable Conflict." Storyline: Susan Calvin tries to understand why machine-guided industrial activities are not performing optimally, and discovers the machines are discrediting their political rivals -- humans. An interesting premise, fairly well done, but once again Asimov seems to be endorsing the concept of machines taking over our free will. Without free will, what makes humans so different from the animals? Read Williamson's "With Folded Hands" for the logical endpoint to this reasoning. I must also point out that the short story contains a writing flaw. The Europe Region contains Egypt (p 206) yet the Tropic Region is supposedly ascendant "for the first time since the Pharaohs" (p 212), who were located in Egypt. A minor flaw in Asimov's writing but frankly an easy one to spot. Rating: satisfactory.

"Feminine Intuition." Storyline: Susan Calvin must determine who overheard the important last words of an intuitive robot. Good story and good detective work. Rating: excellent.

"The Bicentennial Man." Storyline: a robot decides that to be human is a goal worth more than even his life; in 200 years he accomplishes his goal. This is, IMHO, Asimov's greatest short story (and according to him, his third-favorite). It makes the most of characters and is a celebration of humanity. Rating: outstanding.

"Someday." A robot toy, abused by its young owner, demonstrates it's at least capable of contemplating revenge. The story breaks no new ground. Rating: satisfactory.

"Think!" Storyline: a telepathy-producing device is able to pick up a computer's thoughts. It's a surface exploration of the perennial question "can computers become self-aware?" but doesn't address the question of "and if they do, then what?" It could be that Asimov means for *us* to Think! about the answer to that question. Rating: good.

"Segregationist." Storyline: humans are being operated on to become more like robots, while robots are being operated on to become more human. The new miscegenation? This story actually has nothing to do with segregation and would be more appropriately titled "Anti-miscegenationist," though I suppose that doesn't have the same ring. This story surely resonated more in 1967 when it was published than it does now. It also contradicts later Asimov work (Robots and Empire?) that states that robots can never be surgeons. Rating: satisfactory.

"Mirror Image." Storyline: Elijah Bailey interviews two robots to determine which of their owners stole an important mathematical theory, using logic and psychology to catch his man. I do have to point out that Asimov sort of contradicts the reasoning in this short story in his later Daneel Olivaw books, particularly "The Robots of Dawn," which states that it is very difficult to drive a robot into stasis. That said, this short story still deserves a rating of excellent.

Lenny." Storyline: a robot with a childlike brain becomes Susan Calvin's surrogate son. Rating: satisfactory.

"Galley Slave." Storyline: a robot is falsely accused of manipulating the galley proofs of a book, and the perpetrator of the falsehood, through ignorance of robots, is tricked into admitting he manipulated the proofs himself. The title demonstrates Asimov's fondness for puns, and addresses the issue of whether it is a good thing to have robots taking over more and more of work related to the creative process. It reminds me a bit of an article from five or six years ago about how a computer program could write a sports story. Rating: good.

"Christmas Without Rodney." Storyline: a child's misbehavior makes a robot wish the Three Laws didn't exist. This story presents an interesting analysis of the continuum of thoughts to actions -- if a robot could think about wishing there were no Three Laws, isn't that a first step to disobeying them? In fact, isn't that the first step to human sin, thinking about doing something wrong and wishing there weren't rules prohibiting it? Interesting. Rating: excellent.

Asimov's essays. The essays provide no extraordinary insight into either man or machine, and are repetitive of each other and the Introduction. In the essays Asimov also alludes more strongly to his politics, which is about what you'd expect for a New York writer (e.g., "...consider what we're doing to ourselves right now--to all living things and to the very planet we live on. Maybe it is *time* we were replaced." p 422). He's also at times quite churlish about "his" Three Laws (e.g., p 457). I lost a lot of respect for Isaac Asimov the person by reading these essays. Rating: unsatisfactory.

this book covers all of modern open source license which i wanted to know. also, it explain them very easy understanding way.

People don't realize how important licensing is with open source, but there is a lot.

Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing is a very needed book and well written.

Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing
Andrew M. St. Laurent
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/osfreesoft/

When sharing with others that I was reviewing an O'Reilly book through their User Group & Professional Association Program, the first question was always the same: "What book are you reviewing?" After saying the title was "Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing", responses ranged from "What's that?" to "Well, you won't have any trouble sleeping!" One might think that this list of people included relatives and coworkers who were not attuned to the open source community and its issues. On the contrary, the responses came from those within my circle of acquaintances that include software developers, system administrators, and even an intellectual property lawyer. Licensing is not exactly the sort of topic where people slide forward in their seats and ask to be told more. Such is the appeal of software licensing; however, the importance of understanding licensing, particularly within the context of open source development, cannot be overstated.

Those familiar with the O'Reilly product offerings have no doubt seen or purchased one or more their Pocket Reference series (http://pocketrefs.oreilly.com/). They are not comprehensive references, but rather convenient guides for a specific topic to provide the sort of information one is not likely to have committed to memory, particularly as the trend of having cross-disciplined technologists continues. This book could be considered the analog of pocket guides for open source and free software licensing. Open source licenses and their legal interpretation are subject matter that easily warrant a "pocket reference" that is a full-sized book of nearly 200 pages.

Frankly, reading through a software license and maintaining a reasonable level of comprehension is a rather tough job. The author manages to make the task far more bearable and fruitful at the same time; a difficult balance to strike. The pace of the annotation works well to break up the various licenses (twelve in total) into bite-sized chunks. Chapters 2 and 3, which address the BSD/MIT family of licenses and the GPL/LGPL/MPL family of licenses respectively, each end with a section titled "Application and Philosophy" that serves as a sort of reward for making it through the license and establishes a touchstone to summarize and provide meaningful context for what has been covered.

The annotations of the different licenses are a great introduction, but the book should not be considered as a complete reference for open source licensing issues. The book seems to affirm this at points where the author indicates that particular topics fall outside the book's scope, even to the point of recommending experienced legal counsel for certain issues. It also has a wonderful collection of footnotes and reference to other resources to allow the reader to flesh out topics of interest beyond the focus of this work.

One subtlety of the book that should not be missed is how the history of the open source movement is woven throughout the book to provide the context in which these licenses came into being and were modified to accommodate the vibrant, emerging world of open development models. The book's last two chapters bring that context to the foreground, fully developing the consequence of the licenses in daily development activity. It is far too easy to view these licenses and as mere legal documents that exist in and of themselves; the author reminds us that these licenses are the manifestations of a spirit of selfless contribution and work toward social good made possible by the considerable sacrifice of quite gifted individuals. For those passionate about the open source and free software movements, the section of chapter 7 titled "Models of Open Source and Free Software Development" is a poignant and stirring encapsulation of the first years of the GNU and Linux projects and the work that brought them into being. The cliché rings true; we do indeed "stand on the shoulders of giants."

The number of editorial errors involving misspelled and/or missing words seemed relatively high; this is a trend that seems to have developed in technical books in recent years, to a point that the technical community has come to accept it as some sort of side effect of the rapid pace with which books must be produced in order to keep pace with the rate of change. Given that this is an issue present in other works as well as this one, it should not particularly count as a mark against the work, but rather serve to underscore an issue publishers should consider improving.

"Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing" is a book which strikes a balance between completeness of subject matter coverage and manageability of size. Given the amount of attention the average open source user or developer has given to licensing, reading this book would be a considerable improvement. This book is recommended for a couple of audiences. First, it serves as a great foundation for developers either active in or contemplating participation in open source development. Searching most any open source mailing list for the term "license" can usually turn up some of its hottest flame wars. If most developers had this introductory level of understanding about the main open source licenses, hundreds of message threads arguing about licensing could be avoided.

A second audience for this book is the project manager and/or CTO in most corporate IT shops. Most corporate projects are making use of numerous open source libraries and frameworks. This is particularly true with J2EE, but also with .Net as a number of .Net counterparts to popular J2EE resources arise, e.g. NAnt, NUnit, etc. This book can dispel unnecessary apprehension regarding the use of these libraries that often arises from fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) propagated in much of the mainstream technology media. It can also equip managers to make informed decisions about team members' potential contributions to open source projects and the potential legal implications.

I am an attorney who does open source software license work for a living. When this book came along, I picked it up, mostly because I was interested in seeing how O'Reilly does branching out well beyond its usual technical subjects. As you are probably aware, 2004 was the year of open source, according to some publications. Well, it was also the year of open source books. I have seen at least five that deal with the topic directly.

Getting to the merits of St. Laurent's book, I struggled with whether to give it three or four stars. You see, even as a lawyer I found it lacking in clarity and flow. Overall, I am opposed to the route he took in excerpting almost every term of each license and then providing exposition of his own that was a lot of times hardly more helpful than the original license language. A better approach to explaining the licenses can be found in Larry Rosen's wonderful book "Open Source Licensing." However, this downside becomes an upside when using the book as a reference, instead of an educational guide (justifying the fourth star). St. Laurent's approach here is useful for going into more depth on a particular license. Perhaps that was the goal all along.

Another advantage this book has over Rosen's is its broader treatment of the growing array of licenses and license types. St. Laurent covers more licenses and for that I am thankful. In the end, I would recommend having a copy of both Rosen's and St. Laurent's book handy. And whatever you do, skip Rod Dixon's "Open Source Software Law."

Software licensing can be one of the most confusing issues of software installation and development. Most people assume that there are few if any issues with Open Source and Free Software Licensing but that often is not the case. While it may be free to install you wade into murky waters when you change the code, make a new program that uses some of the coding of the open source program, make a derivative program, or a host of other situations. Part of the confusion is that all Open Source or Free Software licensing is not the same. For example there are the MIT, BSD, Apache, and Academic Free Licenses. Or what about the GNU license? Most people don't realize that there are two different versions of GNU licenses, the GNU General Public License (GPL) and the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)? Then there is the Mozilla Public License, Q Public License, Artistic License, and Creative Commons License.

Author Andrew M. St. Laurent does an excellent job explaining all these various licenses, what you can do and can't do, the various benefits and shortcomings of the licenses and pitfalls to watch for. If you are doing development in this arena, have made an improvement to one of the programs, or have written a program for internal use that might have resell value you can't afford to not understand the nuances of the various licensing agreements. Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing is highly recommended and required reading for anyone in this situation.