Biography

Joe Engelberger was born in New York and currently resides in Newtown, CT. Engelberger, usually honored as the Father of Robotics, is the chairman of HelpMate Robotics Inc. The mission of HRI is to give robots a spectrum of sensory perception so that mobile, sensate robots can work shoulder to shoulder with human mentors in service activities. The company's flagship product is "HelpMate", a robotic hospital courier, currently installed in over 50 U. S. hospitals as well as in Europe and Japan.

http://www.rdt.monash.edu.au/~jhs/MachineNames/engelberger.html

Quotes

Watching Robot Evolution
Joe Engelberger

"Right now robots are no more than mechatronic manifestations of human technical ingenuity. Their revolution si, however, proceeding at flank speed. At some early juncture we humans will probably be marveling at robot evolution that had somehow become selfsustaining. Whether the marveling is accompanied by delight or dismay remains to be seen. Whatever, there will be no’meat machine’ handicaps to impede robot evolution. (...) Okay, so maybe robots could be superior space travellers, but could they really hold their own here on earth? Well now, what are some of the roles we already foist on robots? How about underwater maintenance, nuclear power plant service, noxious landfill cleanup, bomb disposal. Robots can handle it. Humans get credit for making the messes. Yeah, but what about ordinary daily life - are not humans best equipped by evolution? By evolution, yes, by our own hands, no. We overpopulate, pollute, harass the environment in a fashion that may make robotics the life form of terrestrial choice. Before that happens, our goal-oriented robots may reason that prevention is preferable to cure and firmly admonish, then chasten us to mend our ways."