Thinking Machines: Robotics: From Mechanical to Sentient Machines

Introduction
In this series of books - Thinking Machines - we will go on a journey to trace the evolution of the mechanical machine of the last century and its transformation into the intelligent, logical and even rational machine of today. It has progressed so quickly that concerns have been raised in the US senate and the EU parliament due to concerns that these machines have become too intelligent, too smart, and most worrying of all too independent. These autonomous, intelligent machines are not some near future problem their evolution and development started many decades ago. And as with most technological marvels their development progressed slowly and then very quickly leaving us with no time to put in place legislation or a strategy to manage them. Consequently, there is not even a rough plan as to how to handle their proliferation through industry, how they will redefine work and take jobs across the entire spectrum. Most importantly to society as these thinking machines are insidiously permeating into all fabric of our world, will be our relationship with the technology, will we ultimately become dependent upon them.
But what are they, how did they come about, and what are the technologies that they are based upon? Those are the question that this series of books hopes to shine some light upon. By doing so, we will explain how a conflation of technologies matured at an opportune time to accelerate the development of such intelligent entities, which now stand on the precipice of an industrial revolution. That such a potentially existential threat could be within not our lifetimes but a handful of years was laughable just five years ago. Yet it has arrived at such speed that it has left us unprepared and with uncertain futures.
Throughout this series of books we will examine through in-depth introductions into the fields of robotics, data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and neuroscience how to create a thinking machine. Further we will strive to reveal how incremental but hugely important advancements in electronics, algorithms, analytics and microbiology have fueled the transformation of the mechanical machines of the 90’s into the thinking machines of 2017.
For better or worse they will walk among us, we have created them and cannot un-invent them so you had better learn something about them.