When Robots Hug

By 2027, it had been seven years since the scientists’ sea-changing research on artificial psychology and robotics. The work debuted around the same time as Large Language Model Chatbots, and the power of the integration of the two technologies put many industries in a tailspin. The commercial and defense industries especially were still scrambling to regulate their use in research and universities. The sought-after scientists signed with DARPA to build reliable and secure AI entities, but the agency grew fearful of the technology’s power and ultimately decided it was too dangerous to bring to market and demanded the scientists destroy the work. The researchers couldn’t bring themselves to discard 20 years of research, so instead sent the entities to various research labs around the world. But unbeknownst to them, each AI-entity embraced its new home, growing, adapting, evolving, and ultimately connecting beyond what the researchers could envision.

 

In the end, asthe scientists catch up to each one, they realize the entities have discovered a very human means of interacting: the power of physical contact; and not physical contact between humans and technology, but physical contact between robotic entities. And with this discovery, the entities join forces to only grow stronger. This development ushers in a new paradigm where the difference between AI-entities and human entities becomes less and less discernible.

 

All the AI and robotic science featured in the book is real; the story line is fictional, but with how fast innovation moves, it’s not hard to envision.

Dr. Crowder’s Bio: Dr. Jim Crowder is an Engineering Fellow at Cobham Advanced Electronic Solutions (CAES) Advanced Technology & Engineering (AT&E), formerly Colorado Engineering, Inc. Dr. Crowder’s career spans over 35 years of experience in engineering, 25 of which has been in artificial intelligence. Having fielded his first Neural Network system in 1993 and his first Fuzzy system in 1995, advanced computing and artificial intelligence has been his focus across Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon Technologies, and now a small engineering firm in Colorado Springs, Colorado Engineering Inc. Dr. Crowder holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering, 2 master’s degrees (one in Electrical Engineering and one in Applied Math) and a BS in Electrical Engineering. He has designed and fielded multiple artificial intelligence systems for most of the Department of Defense agencies, including DARPA, Air Force Research Labs, the Navy, and the Army. He has published 6 books on Systems Engineering and Artificial Intelligence through Springer, which are currently used by Southern Methodist University, Texas A&M, and Baylor University. His latest textbook, published in January of this year, is on Requirements Management. Dr. Crowder has over 120 journal and conference publications and continues to be a leader in the field of Artificial Intelligence, Evolutionary Algorithms, Fuzzy Systems, Cognitive Architectures and Machine Learning. His ground-breaking work in Artificial Psychology (the Psychology of AI) has been downloaded and read over 28,000 times and continues to be a major download from ResearchGate with close to 100 downloads weekly. He just finished publishing a book, out in November, on “Chatbots: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Alan Crowder’s Bio: Alan currently has a BS in IT technology and works for CAES APD (where his father works) as an IT professional. He has been exposed to advanced Artificial Intelligence information and architecturessince he was 10 due to his father, Dr. James Crowder’s continued research and development of AI systems for the last 30 years. He has been instrumental in the development of themes and scenarios for this Sci Fi novel.