IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - September 2019 - 92

society values the output of laborers in
industries ranging from mining to driv-
ing to manufacturing, drawing on ideas
from sociology, economics, and politi-
cal science. The point is not to arrive at
correct answers but to engage students
to think beyond whether they can
build a system and consider what hap-
pens once it is built.
Conversations in the robotics class-
room can range further into the philo-
sophical. For example, in some years, I
introduce students to the concept of
emergent behavior through a thought
experiment from Valentino Braiten-
berg's Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology. Simulations of
Braitenberg vehicles demonstrate that
simple excitatory or inhibitory connec-
tions between sensors and motors can
generate a variety of apparently goal-
directed, intentional behaviors. After
reading Braitenberg and interacting

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IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

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SEPTEMBER 2019

with the simulation, students engage
in debate about the nature of intelli-
gence: Is it in the eye of the beholder,
or is it an intrinsic property of systems?
As engineering educators, we must
help students transcend a narrow tech-
nical viewpoint and develop into well-
rounded citizens whose skills will
outlast ephemeral trends in robotics
and AI. We can achieve this goal by
explicitly considering the broader
impacts of robotics in society and stud-
ying the questions that underpin the
relationship between robotics and cog-
nitive science. At every type of under-
graduate institution-not just small
colleges, such as Swarthmore-instruc-
tors should be empowered to point out
the deep connections among the dispa-
rate fields that inform robotics as a dis-
cipline as well as to frame robotics itself
as a liberal art.

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impacts of tech-
nology, the im-
pact of robotics
educators, we
is especially sali-
ent and conse-
must help students
quential in ways
transcend a narrow
that students
can readily relate
technical viewpoint
to. In my class-
and develop into
room, we have
well-rounded citizens discussed ques-
tions about the
whose skills will
degree of re -
sponsibility of
outlast ephemeral
rank-and-file
trends in robotics
engineers in the
2018 Uber au-
and AI.
tonomous vehi-
cle testing fa -
tality in Arizona.
We have also debated the impact of
automation on disparate sectors of the
economy, raising the question of how
As engineering
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