What Does it Mean to Make a Robot Conscious? - with Hod Lipson

What does it mean for a robot to be conscious? Can a robot have feelings? Will we make robots that take care of one another, upgrade themselves, and reproduce?

I discussed these and other mind-bending questions about the future of robots with Hod Lipson, the brilliant founder of Columbia University’s Creative Machines Lab.

Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker. In this episode, we're looking at the extraordinary future lives of robots with Hod, a global pioneer in both the ‘hard’ mechanics and the ‘soft’ AI underpinnings of robotics. A Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Data Science and founder and director of the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University, Hod lives to push the boundaries of what robots can be and should be. He has BIG ideas about the future, and he and his colleagues prove out those ideas with real-world prototypes.

We met at his lab, and as he walked me through the happy chaos of robot limbs, spare parts and experiments-in-progress, it struck me that not one experiment was trivial. Each represented a potential game-changer.

Hod took me in unexpected directions and introduced me to many new possibilities. I particularly enjoyed his knack for distilling complex ideas into simple one-liners. We covered plenty of ground and could have gone on for hours. All the laughter on the recording gives you some idea of all the fun we were having!

I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast as much as we did making it.

For additional comments, and to read the interview transcript, check out the FutureBites post on the website.

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See you in the future!