''A refreshing variation on the will-intelligent-robots-bring-Armageddon genre . this colorful mixture of expert futurology and quirky speculation does not disappoint'' Kirkus ''A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.'' Isaac Asimov, The First Law of Robotics What robot and AI systems are being built and imagined right now? What do they say about us, their creators? Will they usher in a fantastic new future, or destroy us? What do some of our greatest thinkers, from physicist Brian Greene and futurist Kevin Kelly to inventor Dean Kamen, geneticist George Church and filmmaker Tiffany Shlain, anticipate for our human-robot future? For even as robots and AI intrigue us and make us anxious about the future, our fascination with robots has always been about more than the potential of the technology - it also concerns what robots tell us about being human. From present-day Facebook and Amazon bots to near-future ''intimacy'' bots and ''the robot that swiped my job'' bots, bestselling American popular science writer David Ewing Duncan''s Talking to Robots is a wonderfully entertaining and insightful guide to possible future scenarios about robots, both real and imagined. Featured bots include robot drivers; doc bots; politician bots; warrior bots; sex bots; synthetic bio bots; dystopic bots that are hopefully just bad dreams; and ultimately, God Bot (as described by physicist Brian Greene). These scenarios are informed by discussions with well-known thinkers, engineers, scientists, artists, philosophers and others, who share with us their ideas, hopes and fears about robots. David spoke with, among others, Kevin Kelly, David Baldacci, Brian Greene, Dean Kamen, Craig Venter, Stephanie Mehta, David Eagleman, George Poste, George Church, General R. H.

Latiff, Robert Seigel, Emily Morse, David Sinclair, Ken Goldberg, Sunny Bates, Adam Gazzaley, Tim O''Reilly, Tiffany Shlain, Eric Topol and Juan Enriquez. These discussions, along with some reporting on bot-tech, bot-history and real-time societal and ethical issues with robots, are the launch pads for unfurling possible bot futures that are informed by how people and societies have handled new technologies in the past. The book describes how robots work, but its primary focus is on what our fixation with bots and AI says about us as humans: about our hopes and anxieties; our myths, stories, beliefs and ideas about beings both real and artificial; and our attempts to attain perfection. We are at a pivotal moment when our ancient infatuation with human-like beings with certain attributes or superpowers - in mythology, religion and storytelling - is coinciding with our ability to actually build some of these entities. The book has been written in a specially created tense, which the author calls ''near-present future'', which regards everything as happening in the present, even if something is happening, or happened, in the past, or might happen in the future. For example, as below: ''In the future, we will all remember when the robots truly arrived. Perhaps a robot surgeon saved your child''s life, or maybe your inaugural robot moment will be more banal, when you realised with relief that the machines had taken over all the tasks you used to hate - taking out the rubbish, changing nappies, paying bills . ''Perhaps your recollection will be less benign, a memory of when a robot turned against you: the robot that threatened to seize your assets over a tax dispute.

''You might also remember when the robots began campaigning for equal rights with humans, and for an end to robot slavery, abuse and exploitation. ''Or when robots became so smart that they became our benign overlords, treating us like cute and not very bright pets. ''Or when the robots grew tired of us and decided to destroy us, turning our own robo-powered weapons of mass destruction against us. ''Further into the future we will remember when robots became organic, created in a lab from living tissue to look and be just like us, only better and more resilient. Even further in the future, we will recall when we first had the option of becoming robots ourselves, by downloading our minds into organic-engineered beings that could theoretically live forever. And yet . will we feel that something is missing as the millennia pass? Will we grow weary of being robots, invulnerable and immortal? ''Mostly we love our technology as it whisks us across and over continents and oceans at 35,000 feet, or summons us rides in someone else''s Prius or connects us online to long-lost friends. Yet deep down, many of us fear that a robo-Apocalypse is all too possible.

We seem obsessed with robots, as we embrace contrasting visions of robo-utopia and robo-dystopia that titillate, bring hope or scare the hell out of us.''.