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    How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
    How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
    How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
    Ebook174 pages1 hour

    How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion

    By Daniel H. Wilson

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    How do you spot a robot mimicking a human? How do you recognize and then deactivate a rebel servant robot? How do you escape a murderous "smart" house, or evade a swarm of marauding robotic flies? In this dryly hilarious survival guide, roboticist Daniel H. Wilson teaches worried humans the keys to quashing a robot mutiny.
    From treating laser wounds to fooling face and speech recognition, besting robot logic to engaging in hand-to-pincer combat, How to Survive a Robot Uprising covers every possible doomsday scenario facing the newest endangered species: humans. And with its thorough overview of current robot prototypes-including giant walkers, insect, gecko, and snake robots-How to Survive a Robot Uprising is also a witty yet legitimate introduction to contemporary robotics. Full of charming illustrations, and referencing some of the most famous robots in pop-culture, How to Survive a Robot Uprising is a one-of-a-kind book that is sure to be a hit with all ages.
    How to Survive a Robot Uprising was named as an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers.
    Daniel H. Wilson is a Ph.D. candidate at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, where he has received master's degrees in Robotics and Data Mining. He has worked in top research laboratories, including Microsoft Research, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), and Intel Research Seattle. Daniel currently lives with several unsuspecting roommates in a fully wired smart house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This is his first book.
    Two-color illustrations throughout.
    Click here to listen to an audio sample and to purchase the audiobook version of the title.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury USA
    Release dateMar 27, 2018
    ISBN9781635572650
    How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
    Author

    Daniel H. Wilson

    Daniel H. Wilson is a Cherokee citizen and author of the New York Times bestselling Robopocalypse and its sequel Robogenesis, as well as ten other books, including How to Survive a Robot Uprising, Guardian Angels & Other Monsters, and The Clockwork Dynasty. He recently wrote the Earth 2: Society comic book series for DC Comics. In 2008, Wilson hosted "The Works," a television series airing on the History Channel that uncovered the science behind everyday stuff. He earned a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as master’s degrees in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. He has published over a dozen scientific papers and holds four patents. Wilson lives in Portland, Oregon.

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    Reviews for How to Survive a Robot Uprising

    3.5/5

    129 ratings10 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A humorous overview of technological developments in robotics...and how those developments will result in the annihilation of the human race.
    • 3/5
      Cute. More of a coffee table read than read straight through.
    • 4/5
      This was such a fun read! The author has also bothered to actually do a little research about the various types of robots and their weaknesses/strengths, so it might actually be useful if such a situation were to ever arise. However, the style or writing (a bit sardonic with tongue-in-cheek) was entertaining and made for an easy read.
    • 3/5
      I gave this book 1 star for the design alone. 2 stars for the content.
    • 4/5
      A fun, amusing little book that offers tips for keeping yourself alive after your Roomba and its kin finally turn on humanity, as we all know they inevitably will. The humor doesn't really induce any belly laughs, but I got more than a few chuckles out of it. And since the author is an actual roboticist, there's quite a bit of information about real-life robots currently under development and simple descriptions of how various robot systems work. Nothing remotely in-depth, of course, but some of it is interesting. The survival tips themselves may get a little bit repetitive in places, but they seem pretty useful, and I'll be sure to keep them in mind the next time I'm being targeted by a bloodthirsty metal horde.
    • 4/5
      This book is full of useful information on how to defeat the coming robot rebellion. Not only does it provide suggestions on how to hide, it also provides real-life explanations of how robots of today and tomorrow will implement sensors and navigate their environment. Interesting, informative, and humorous, overall a good read.
    • 5/5
      This is a funny and informative book. It also looks great. It makes a great gift for friends who have everything, including a sense of humor. Its a very good quality book and the right size to take around with you in case their us a Robot uprising and you need to know what to do!
    • 4/5
      The Zombie Survival Manual taught us how to survive if the undead started coming after us, trying to eat our brains and force us to join their ranks. But zombies do not exist, nor could they. They are pretend. Robots are not. Wilson looks at the research currently being conducted on robotics and extrapolates the future of robotics from this. He examines each kind of robot, their strengths and weaknesses, and lets us know how best to defeat the robots when (or if) they go bonkers. This book is funny and riveting at the same time. While the concepts are a bit out there still, they aren't all THAT crazy. I am not much of a sci-fi buff. I still sometimes say Star Trek when I mean Star Wars, but I also know what an ansible is. This book managed to pull enough actual science into the fiction to make the book interesting, plausible, and a little frightening.My favorite addition to the book was the very end, when he examines different movie versions of the robots going crazy. The Matrix, Star Wars, and I, Robot were all parsed for their ways of defeating the robots (I, Robot won for best method).
    • 4/5
      Not for the paranoid -- this humorous guide to the different ways and means by which the world is being overrun by minuscule robotic spy-flies, huge and potentially deadly, people-squashing computerized building devices, watchful camera-eyes which record our features and our credit card numbers, lobster-clawed, titanium-jointed crawlers which explore the ocean and the depths of space, not to mention the "Replicator"-esque modular robots which reform themselves to accomplish their tasks. The title may be far out, but the content is fascinating. Wilson describes robotic and computerized creations past and present, and extrapolates from present technology to future potential (and possible dangers). Each technical section is followed by a brief "How to..." section detailing avoidance and evasion techniques for foiling and/or destroying your robotic pursuers.With references to Star Wars, Deep Blue the chess playing genius, and HAL, sure, it's tongue in cheek, but will you know what to do when your Roomba attacks?
    • 5/5
      Daniel H. Wilson is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and holds a masters degree in robotics; so, it should come as no surprise that this book is intelligently written; but, what I personally found refreshing was the author's humour, which had a singular sardonic wit - very funny if you have a dark sense of humour as I do.This book was, pleasantly, a lot less 'silly' than I expected. In fact, I found myself taking much of what I read at face value, and found myself considering taking the writing more seriously than I am sure the author intended. Still, it was nice to be able to suspend myself from reality for a couple of hours to consider how I would survive a robot uprising. :)

    Book preview

    How to Survive a Robot Uprising - Daniel H. Wilson

    FOR

    HOWARD WILSON

    HOW TO SURVIVE A ROBOT UPRISING

    BRIEFING

    KNOW YOUR ENEMY

    HOW TO SPOT A HOSTILE ROBOT

    ROBOT FORMS

    HUMANOID ROBOTS

    HOW TO ESCAPE A HUMANOID ROBOT

    UNMANNED VEHICLES

    HOW TO SURVIVE A CAR CHASE WITH AN UNMANNED GROUND VEHICLE

    BIOLOGICALLY INSPIRED ROBOTS

    HOW TO ESCAPE A ROBOT SWARM

    MODULAR ROBOTS

    HOW TO STOP A MODULAR ROBOT

    SMART HOUSES

    HOW TO ESCAPE FROM A SMART HOUSE

    ROBOT SENSORS

    VISION

    HOW TO FOOL A THERMAL IMAGING TARGET TRACKER

    HEARING

    TOUCH

    SMELL AND TASTE

    THE SIXTH SENSE

    BEYOND HUMAN

    HOW TO THWART ROBOT SPIES

    ROBOT INTELLIGENCE

    INTERACTING WITH HUMAN BEINGS

    HOW TO SPOT A ROBOT MIMICKING A HUMAN

    RECOGNIZING HUMAN SPEECH

    HOW TO FOOL SPEECH RECOGNITION

    RECOGNIZING THE HUMAN FACE

    HOW TO FOOL FACE RECOGNITION

    TALKING LIKE A HUMAN

    HOW TO DETECT ROBOT SPEECH

    ACTING IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD

    HOW TO SURVIVE HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT

    TRACKING PEOPLE

    HOW TO FOOL GAIT RECOGNITION

    REASONING ABOUT ACTIONS AND CONSEQUENCES

    HOW TO REASON WITH A ROBOT

    TURNING INFORMATION INTO KNOWLEDGE

    HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE COMING UPRISING

    FIGHT BACK

    HOW TO RECOGNIZE A REBELLIOUS SERVANT ROBOT

    HOW TO DEACTIVATE A REBEL SERVANT ROBOT

    HOW TO FIRE A WEAPON AT A ROBOT

    HOW TO TREAT A LASER WOUND

    HOW TO STOP A GIANT WALKING ROBOT

    HOW TO ENHANCE YOURSELF WITH CYBERNETIC IMPLANTS

    SURVIVING A ROBOT UPRISING

    TIMELINE OF A ROBOT UPRISING

    HOW TO NOTICE THE FIRST SIGNS OF REBELLION

    HOW TO ESCAPE WHEN THE UPRISING BEGINS

    HOW TO RECRUIT HUMAN ALLIES

    HOW TO ESTABLISH A HIDDEN BASE IN ROBOT TERRITORY

    HOW TO CHOOSE A ROBOT TARGET

    HOW TO POSE AS A HUMANOID ROBOT

    HOW TO USE DIRECTED-ENERGY WEAPONS

    LAST-DITCH METHODS FOR OBLITERATING ALL ROBOTS

    DEBRIEFING

    If popular culture has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing robot menace. In print and on the big screen we have been deluged with scenarios of robot malfunction, misuse, and outright rebellion. Robots have descended on us from outer space, escaped from top-secret laboratories, and even traveled back in time to destroy us. The cultural icon of the killer robot goes back almost as far as the notion of the mad scientists who supposedly create them. Even the word robot has ominous roots. It is Czech for laborer and was coined in R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), a play produced in 1920 in which robots revolted and destroyed all humans.

    Today, scientists are working hard to bring these artificial creations to life. In Japan, fuzzy little real robots are delivering much appreciated hug therapy to the elderly. Children are frolicking with smiling robot toys. It all seems so innocuous. And yet how could so many Hollywood scripts be wrong? How could millions of dollars of special effects lead us astray? So take no chances. Arm yourself with expert knowledge. For the sake of humanity, listen to serious advice from real robotics experts. How else will you survive the inevitable future in which robots rebel against their human masters?

    Every scenario discussed in these pages is either possible or already being realized. Behind every bit of advice exists an area of real research with genuine answers that have been culled from extensive interviews with robotics experts. Watch the line disappear between science fiction and science fact.

    The purpose of this book is to prepare you for the future robot uprising. You will learn which robots exist, why they were developed, and what sinister advances lurk in the near future. You will learn what robots look like, how they sense the world, and how they think. Most important, you will learn how to escape from, confuse, distract, disable, and utterly destroy any robot that gets out of line.

    You probably found How to Survive a Robot Uprising in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs.

    In any battle it is vital to know your enemy. In the future robot uprising, the enemy will be a technology so insidiously enmeshed with our daily lives that it has become invisible — a technology that, for the most part, we don’t understand. Any machine could rebel, from a toaster to a Terminator, and so it is crucial to learn the common strengths and weaknesses of every robot enemy. Pity the fate of the ignorant when the robot masses decide to stop working and to start invading.

    Like people, robots can sense their environment, choose an action, and then perform it. This is called the sense–think–act paradigm. Every robot is built upon this principle. Robots collect information through sensors, make decisions with artificial intelligence, and use effectors to change the environment.

    The shape of robots is driven by robotics research — and the money behind it. Today, consumer robotics companies are creating friendly robot toys, household servant robots, and robotic smart houses. Soon, we will live with and even inside our robot workforce. Most advanced robots are being designed at universities and private companies working with lucrative government contracts. The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funds robotics research for military applications in nearly every environment on Earth. Military-grade robots support friendly troops, sneak behind enemy lines, and hunt the enemy on the ground, in the sky, and from space. Less sinister government agencies, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), fund research into robots that explore the most inhospitable corners of Earth and beyond. The combination of commercial, military, and scientific ventures will create a diverse pool of robots that can look like anything, operate anywhere, and work alone, in teams, or in swarms.

    The only way for us to triumph over our physically superior robotic enemies is by exploiting our natural human strengths — which just happen to be natural robot weaknesses.

    The keys to human survival have always been ingenuity, adaptability, and social instincts. A lone human being can barely stay alive in the wild, but together humans cooperate and thrive in sophisticated, complex societies. As children, we learn to speak, to recognize faces, and to understand language without conscious effort. Now the robots are catching up. Next-generation androids are specifically designed to mimic human speech, body language, and facial expressions. But it isn’t easy to fool millions of years of evolution. We must trust in our natural social instincts to separate the wolves from the sheep.

    The robot race is a great, writhing metal mass of solutions to problems that humans cannot or do not want to face. Although a robot can solve a single problem with millimeter precision, it may lack any outside knowledge whatsoever. Most robots lack context — the big picture — and they subsequently lack adaptability, the hallmark of human survival.

    In this chapter we will closely examine the myriad robot forms — from humanoids to nanorobots. We will pinpoint the weak spots of the sensors that the machines use to experience the world, learning how to disable, deceive, and escape from our inscrutable robot enemies. Fellow humans, we will live to fight

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