Section 14.1
• How does SHAKEY exemplify the physical symbol system hypothesis, introduced in Chapter 4?
• To what extent does SHAKEY count as intelligent in your view?
Section 14.2
• How plausible do you find the basic criticisms that situated cognition theorists make to traditional AI (GOFAI)?
• What do you think that biorobotics and morphological computation can teach us about how to design robots?
Section 14.3
• Evaluate the criticism that subsumption architectures may only be appropriate for building mechanical insects.
• Do TOTO and the Nerd Herd display a form of intelligence?
• What does it mean to say that the Nerd Herd displays emergent behaviors? Why is this claim important for thinking about artificial intelligence? How plausible do you find it?
Shakey the robot (video demonstration)
Introduction to various robots, including SHAKEY (video from University of Edinburgh)
Brief introduction to embodied cognition by Andy Clark (video on YouTube)
Discussion of embodied cognition and robotics by Dana Ballard (video on videolectures.net)
Why we will rely on robots (a TED talk by Rodney Brooks)
Robotics primer by Maja Mataric (video on YouTube)
An autonomous swarm of flying robots (video on YouTube)
14.1 GOFAI Robotics: SHAKEY
Shakey the robot (official website)
SHAKEY: The World’s First Mobile Intelligent Robot, 1972 (Shakey’s IEEE Milestone page)
14.2 Situated Cognition and Biorobotics
Where brain, body, and world collide (book chapter by Clark, 2008 in Material Agency)
Explanation: Mechanism, modularity, and situated cognition (book chapter by Bechtel, 2009, in The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition)
Eroding the Boundaries of Cognition: Implications of Embodiment (paper by Anderson et al., 2012, in Topics in Cognitive Science)
Embodiment, Situatedness, and Morphology for Humanoid Robots Interacting with People (book chapter by Miller and Feil-Siefer, 2016, in Humanoid Robotics: A Reference)
Insect robotics group (website from Barbara Webb’s research group)
How Morphological Computation Shapes Integrated Information in Embodied Agents (paper by Langer and Ay, 2021, in Frontiers in Psychology)
14.3 From Subsumption Architectures to Behavior-Based Robotics
Kilobots (swarm robotics developed by a Harvard team)
A Hierarchical Behavior-Based Architecture (website by Monica Nicolescu)
Maja Mataric’s publications (website from the University of Southern California)
A robust layered control system for a mobile robot (paper by Brooks, 1985)
Planning is just a way of avoiding figuring out what to do next (paper by Brooks, 1987)
Intelligence without representation (paper by Brooks, 1987)
Elephants don’t play chess (paper by Brooks, 1990, in Robotics and autonomous systems)
Intelligence without reason (paper by Brooks, 1991)
From earwigs to humans (paper by Brooks, 1997)
A Boy Scout, Toto, and a Bird: How situated cognition is different from situated robotics (book chapter by Clancey, 1995, in The Artificial Life Route to Artificial Intelligence)
Mobile Robot Control and Navigation: A Global Overview (paper by Tzafestas, 2018, in Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems)
Behavior-Based Control for an Aerial Robotic Swarm in Surveillance Missions (paper by Garcia-Aunon et al., 2019, in Sensors)
The design of self-organizing human–swarm intelligence (paper by Hasbach and Bennewitz, 2021, in Adaptive Behavior)
Biorobotics: Using robots to emulate and investigate agile animal locomotion (paper by Ijspeert, 2014, in Science)
Walking with Salamanders: From Molecules to Biorobotics (paper by Ryczko et al., 2020, in Trendsin Neurosciences)
Neurorobotics—A Thriving Community and a Promising Pathway Toward Intelligent Cognitive Robots (paper by Krichmar, 2018, in Frontiers in Neurorobotics)
