CHAPTER 2

Robot Exposure: In the Media and In Our Midst

We are fascinated with robots because they are reflections of ourselves.

—Ken Goldberg, Professor at UC Berkeley and noted technology writer (www.brainyquote.com)

Chapter Overview

In this chapter, we review two of the three main sources of current public opinion about robots, namely, robots as portrayed in the entertainment media and present-day robots with which consumers interact. The third source, news coverage/expert commentary, is discussed in later chapters. The fictional robots from films, TV shows and books that have left the greatest impression on our collective psyche include everything from positive images of robots (such as C3PO and R2D2 from the Star Wars franchise) to extremely ...

Get The Coming Age of Robots now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.