What’s the best way to avoid a robot that can punch you in the face? Don’t get close to it, says Daniel Wilson, author of the recently published humorous paperback “How to Survive a Robot Uprising” (Bloomsbury, Nov. 2005). And if funny science fiction reading isn’t quite your cup of tea, wait for the movie. Paramount Pictures has purchased the movie rights.
Wilson, who earned his Ph.D. in robotics (2005) and master’s degrees in robotics (2004), and knowledge discovery and data mining (2002) at Carnegie Mellon, says the advice he gives in the book is factual based on his in-depth knowledge of robotics, but please don’t take him seriously. Chapters range from “How to Survive a Car Chase with an Unmanned Ground Vehicle” and “How to Stop a Modular Robot” to ”How to Spot a Robot Mimicking a Human” and “How to Fool Speech Recognition.”
“For every robotic sensor there’s a weakness,” says Wilson who got the idea for the book while discussing with friends the evil way robots are portrayed in television and movies. “All the information is real, but it’s meant to be fun.”
The Tulsa, Okla., native who specializes in “smart” houses—homes that contain many robotic sensors to help the elderly and their caregivers—sent a one-page pitch letter for the book to several literary agents. The letter got the attention of one agent who also pitched the story to a colleague in the film industry.
“Two screenwriters are working to put a story around the book. I can’t say anything about it, but it’s hilarious. There’s no guarantee, but it could be released sometime in 2007,” he says.
Wilson, who plans to make his career in industrial research and development, will begin a book tour this month (November) that will take him to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, New York City and Cambridge, Mass. He gave a talk and held a book signing at Joseph Beth Bookstore on Pittsburgh’s South Side in early November and he’s been interviewed for stories in Popular Mechanics and Wired magazines. Foreign rights to the book have also been sold in the United Kingdom, Poland and in Japan, where the book is being translated into Japanese.
And exactly how do you fool a robot’s speech recognition system? “Cover your mouth so it can’t read your lips,” Wilson says.
