Robots Versus Toasters: How The Power of Movement Plays Tricks On Human Brains

Kate Darling is an expert on human robot interaction, robot ethics, intellectual property, and all sorts of other things at the MIT Media Lab. She’s written several excellent articles for us in the past, and we’re delighted to be able to share this excerpt from her new book, which comes out today. Entitled The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots, Kate’s book is an exploration of how animals can help us understand our robot relationships, and how far that comparison can really be extended. It’s solidly based on well-cited research, including many HRI studies that we’ve written about in the past, but Kate brings everything together and tells us what it all could mean as robots continue to integrate themselves into our lives. 

The following excerpt is The Power of Movement, a section from the chapter Robots Versus Toasters, which features one of the saddest robot videos I’ve ever seen, even after nearly a decade. Enjoy!