Congratulations go out to Mark Stephen Meadows on the sale of his fascinating book We, Robot to Lyons Press.

When the Terminator said, “I’ll be back” he wasn’t kidding around. In fact, he’s been waddling about on the battlefields of Iraq since 2007. The problem, though (aside from the fact that he’s a robot assassin), is that he still needs some debugging; when he gets stuck or falls over – as he does from time to time – he can’t figure out who the bad guy is, and so he starts shooting at his friends.

In December of 2008 the US Navy’s research division received an extensive report titled Autonomous Military Robotics: Risk, Ethics, and Design.  The authors of the report discuss a rather mysterious 2008 event in Iraq in which several American-made robots armed with machine guns malfunctioned and opened fire on ‘friendly’ US soldiers. The authors also point to a 2007 incident when an autonomous “robotic cannon deployed by the South African army malfunctioned, killing nine ‘friendly’ soldiers and wounding 14 others.” The authors outline how hard it is to stop potentially fatal chains of events caused by autonomous military systems, or even systems in cities, homes, and schools that “…process information and can act at speeds incomprehensible to us.” They then coolly conclude, “It would be naive to think such accidents will not happen again.”

What was probably logical, and most interesting about the report, was the advice that was given to address the ethical and moral problems that can occur on the robot-occupied battlefield; give the robots a sense of ethics and morality. But the report takes a turn for the bizarre when the authors offer Isaac Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics, from the science fiction novel, I, Robot to solve the problem. They offer science fiction as a guiding light by which the US Navy can navigate the rather foggy waters of ethics, war, and autonomous robots. When roboticists for the military begin to rely on science fiction as a solution for their work, we have something worth noticing.

Science fiction has always influenced engineering (the term “Robot” came from Science Fiction) but now science fiction is taking the lead, directing robotics research. While robots have always been the children of science fiction, they don’t just live on faraway battlefields anymore. Science fiction has guided engineering fact. This means that we can now look at science fiction and determine where engineering will go. By doing this we can not only learn more about the world of robots that are emerging and surrounding us but we can also understand where this powerful technology is at, predict what is coming, perceive new industries, learn new trends, and anticipate new problems.

We, Robot will introduce readers to the latest discoveries in robotics and artificial intelligence by looking at science fiction universes (Blade Runner, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, etc) and robot residents (Wall-E, Iron Man, Terminator, Robocop, HAL of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I, Robot, to name a few), and will show readers how close they are to becoming a reality. It will also categorize them by which will appear earlier than others, which won’t happen for another 50 years, and which ones just won’t happen at all. Through a discussion of robots loved and hated by millions it will provide an informed, entertaining, and often surprising look at what to expect in the next decade as well as in the next year.