Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Rodney Brooks

Rodney Allen Brooks (born December 1954) is an roboticist, , and entrepreneur best known for developing the subsumption architecture, a foundational approach to behavior-based that enables reactive, layered control systems for autonomous robots. His work emphasizes practical, bottom-up designs for intelligent machines that interact with real-world environments, influencing fields from consumer robotics to planetary . Born in , , Brooks earned a and in from in 1975 and 1978, respectively, followed by a Ph.D. in from in 1981, where he studied with AI pioneer John McCarthy. He joined the (MIT) faculty in 1984, where he served as the Panasonic Professor of Robotics until his retirement in 2010, and directed the MIT Laboratory from 1997 to 2003 and the and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) from 2003 to 2007. At MIT, Brooks advanced key areas including , path planning, humanoid robotics, and human-robot collaboration, notably through projects like the humanoid robot and concepts for Mars exploration rovers. He has authored influential books such as Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI (1999) and Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (2002), and was featured in the 1997 documentary Fast, Cheap and Out of Control. Brooks co-founded Corporation in 1990, serving as and chairman until 2011, where he led the development of groundbreaking consumer products like the , which became one of the most widely deployed robots in history. In 2008, he founded Rethink Robotics, acting as chairman and until 2018, pioneering affordable, collaborative industrial robots such as and Sawyer designed for safe human interaction in manufacturing. Since 2019, he has served as co-founder and of Robust.AI, focusing on cognitive engines for autonomous mobile robots in logistics and warehousing. His contributions have earned numerous accolades, including the 1991 Computers and Thought Award from the International Joint Conferences on , the 2008 IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production, the 2014 Engelberger Award for leadership in the field, the 2015 IEEE and Award, the 2023 IEEE Founders Medal, and election to the in 2025. Brooks is a member of the and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Association for the Advancement of .

Early Life and Education

Early Years

Rodney Allen Brooks was born in , , on December 30, 1954. He grew up in as the first in his family to attend ; his parents—a and a schoolteacher with a degree in —encouraged his curiosity about the world despite not being scientists themselves. As a child in during the , Brooks developed an early fascination with and in a relatively low-tech environment, often tinkering with gadgets to understand how things worked. His interest in was sparked in his teenage years by the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly the character , which led him to experiment with building simple computers for games like tic-tac-toe and pursuing ideas in , including his first successful at around age 16 or 17. These formative experiences in school years, involving hands-on exploration of electronics and mechanics, shaped Brooks' curiosity about machines and intelligence before his formal academic pursuits.

Academic Training

Brooks earned a Bachelor of Science degree in pure mathematics from Flinders University of South Australia in 1975. He pursued advanced studies at the same institution, completing a Master of Science degree in pure mathematics in 1977. His undergraduate and graduate coursework at Flinders emphasized rigorous mathematical foundations, providing a strong analytical base for his subsequent transition into computer science and artificial intelligence. In 1977, after completing his , Brooks relocated to the to pursue doctoral studies at . He received his PhD in from Stanford in 1981, under the supervision of Thomas Binford. His dissertation focused on model-based , exploring symbolic representations and planning techniques to enable robots to interpret visual data and perform tasks in structured environments.

Academic Career

MIT Roles

Rodney Brooks joined the faculty of the (MIT) in 1984 as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). His early years at focused on building his academic career within the Laboratory, where he advanced through the ranks based on his growing influence in robotics research. By 1988, Brooks had been promoted to in EECS. Brooks was promoted to full professor and appointed to the Professor of chair, a prestigious endowed position that recognized his expertise in the field. This appointment solidified his leadership role in MIT's community. Throughout his tenure, he contributed to MIT's educational mission by teaching courses on , , and related topics, mentoring numerous graduate students who went on to prominent careers in the field. In 1997, Brooks was appointed director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, overseeing its operations and research agenda until 2003. Following the merger of the AI Lab with the Laboratory for Computer Science to form the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), he served as its director from 2003 to 2007, guiding the combined entity through a period of expansion and interdisciplinary collaboration. In 2010, Brooks retired from active faculty duties and transitioned to emeritus status as the Professor of Robotics Emeritus, while retaining affiliations with CSAIL and continuing occasional involvement in initiatives.

Research Directions

During the 1980s, Rodney Brooks shifted his research focus at from classical planning paradigms, which emphasized abstract representation and deliberation, to behavior-based robotics, promoting the principles of situated and embodied intelligence where agents interact directly with their environments through simple, reactive behaviors. This transition advocated for intelligence emerging from physical embodiment and real-world sensory-motor loops rather than detached symbolic computation. A seminal articulation of this perspective appeared in Brooks' 1990 paper "Elephants Don't Play Chess," which critiqued the limitations of traditional AI's chess-like focus on isolated problem-solving and instead posited that true intelligence arises from ongoing sensory-motor interactions in dynamic, unpredictable settings. The paper influenced subsequent work by emphasizing bottom-up, incremental development of capabilities in robotic systems. Brooks' academic publications further explored interconnected themes, including , where he investigated emergent behaviors in simulated and physical systems to model biological complexity. In , his early and ongoing contributions addressed model-based interpretation of visual data to support autonomous navigation and in real environments. He also advanced concepts for planetary rovers, proposing lightweight, autonomous vehicles capable of distributed exploration in extraterrestrial terrains. Through his supervision of numerous students and collaborations at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Brooks exerted significant influence on fields such as humanoid and multi-agent systems, fostering research into integrated perception-action frameworks and coordinated agent behaviors. As a longtime faculty member, these efforts shaped generations of researchers advancing embodied methodologies.

Contributions to Robotics

Subsumption Architecture

Rodney Brooks introduced the subsumption architecture in his paper "A Robust Layered Control System for a ," presenting it as an alternative to traditional hierarchical control systems in . Unlike classical approaches that rely on a central representational model to deliberate and plan actions before execution, subsumption architecture decomposes into asynchronous layers of simple behaviors that interact directly with the environment, enabling emergent complex behaviors without explicit internal world models. The core principles of subsumption architecture emphasize behavioral decomposition over functional modularity, where control is organized into horizontal layers corresponding to increasing levels of competence, each achieving specific task-oriented behaviors. Higher layers can subsume the functions of lower layers by selectively suppressing their outputs rather than inhibiting them entirely, allowing lower-level behaviors to continue operating as fallbacks when higher-level ones are inactive or fail. This design avoids a single central representation or deliberation process, instead promoting robustness through distributed, low-bandwidth communication among layers implemented on simple processors. Conceptually, the framework structures behaviors into finite-state machines within each layer, with suppression signals serving as the primary mechanism for coordination; for instance, a higher layer might suppress a lower layer's motor commands only when its own behavior requires precedence, ensuring seamless integration. Representative layers include Level 0 ("Avoid"), which uses proximity sensors like to detect and steer away from obstacles, preventing collisions; Level 1 ("Wander"), which periodically generates random headings to enable aimless movement while being subsumed by the Avoid layer during threats; and Level 2 ("Explore"), which employs and to identify and follow corridor-like paths toward goals. These layers build incrementally, with each new layer tested independently atop the existing system, facilitating extensibility without redesign. The architecture's advantages lie in its robustness for uncertain, dynamic environments, where traditional deliberative systems often fail due to incomplete world models or computational bottlenecks; subsumption enables immediate, reactive responses while maintaining overall goal-directed behavior through . This was demonstrated in early prototypes of mobile robots, such as those navigating unstructured spaces, where lower layers ensured basic survival (e.g., obstacle avoidance) even if higher exploratory behaviors were disabled, highlighting the system's and performance.

Notable Robot Developments

One of Rodney Brooks' early notable robotic developments was the Genghis hexapod, constructed at in 1989 as a demonstration of insect-inspired locomotion using the subsumption architecture. Genghis featured a simple mechanical design with six legs, each comprising two , and relied on a network of 57 finite-state machines to generate emergent walking behaviors without centralized planning. The robot's purpose was to explore how layered, reactive control could produce robust mobility in unstructured environments. This work highlighted the potential for scalable, behavior-based systems in , influencing subsequent designs in legged locomotion. In the late , Brooks and his team developed the Allen robot, an early mobile platform designed to navigate dynamic office environments through layered behavioral control. Allen utilized sonar sensors and for real-time obstacle avoidance and path following, with its subsumption-based architecture enabling incremental addition of competencies like random wandering and goal-directed movement without disrupting lower-level reactions. The robot operated autonomously in MIT's AI Lab corridors, demonstrating fault-tolerant performance by suppressing higher behaviors during critical avoidance tasks. This prototype underscored the viability of distributed control for practical indoor mobility, paving the way for more complex autonomous systems in human-shared spaces. Brooks contributed to NASA projects in the early 1990s by advocating for fault-tolerant autonomous rovers for Mars exploration, emphasizing distributed, cheap systems over single large vehicles. In his 1990 paper, he proposed swarms of small, insect-like rovers using reactive architectures to enhance mission reliability through and local decision-making, reducing vulnerability to single-point failures in harsh conditions. These concepts influenced NASA's consideration of autonomous for planetary rovers, prioritizing robustness and in resource-constrained environments. The ideas promoted a shift toward emergent group behaviors for exploration, impacting later designs like those in the mission. During the 1990s, Brooks oversaw the project at , an upper-torso aimed at investigating the role of physical embodiment in developing intelligent behaviors. , initiated around 1993, incorporated 21 in its arms, head, and torso, along with multimodal sensors including cameras and tactile arrays to enable tasks like visual tracking, object grasping, and social gesturing. The design philosophy focused on through situated interactions, where motor skills and perceptual abilities co-evolved to mimic human developmental processes. 's development advanced academic understanding of , demonstrating how physical form constrains and enables cognitive architectures in humanoid robotics.

Industrial Ventures

iRobot Foundation

In 1990, Rodney Brooks co-founded Corporation alongside his MIT colleagues Colin Angle and Helen Greiner, establishing it as a from research conducted at 's Laboratory. The company initially aimed to commercialize practical technologies derived from academic prototypes, focusing on rugged, autonomous systems for real-world applications. iRobot's early growth was driven by military contracts, particularly for its , a portable designed for explosive ordnance disposal and reconnaissance. PackBots were first deployed at Ground Zero following the September 11, 2001, attacks to aid in search and recovery efforts amid hazardous conditions. The robots saw extensive use during the , where over 50 units assisted in dozens of missions by 2004, with only one lost to enemy fire, demonstrating their reliability in combat zones. A pivotal shift toward markets occurred in 2002 with the launch of , iRobot's flagship , which revolutionized home cleaning by enabling autonomous floor navigation without complex mapping. 's design incorporated behavior-based control principles, allowing it to react to environmental stimuli in layers of simple, overlapping behaviors rather than relying on centralized planning. This approach enabled the robot to avoid obstacles, detect dirt, and cover spaces efficiently, making practical accessible to households. Key milestones underscored iRobot's commercial success, including its on November 9, 2005, which raised approximately $103 million at $24 per share. By the , the company had sold millions of home robots, with over five million units shipped by 2010. Brooks served as until 2011, guiding technical innovation during this period of rapid growth.

Later Companies

In 2008, Brooks founded Rethink Robotics in to advance collaborative for industrial applications. The company developed the Baxter robot in 2012, a dual-arm system designed for safe, intuitive operation by non-experts in settings, followed by the single-arm Sawyer robot in 2015, which emphasized precision tasks like assembly and . Brooks served as , chairman, and , guiding the firm's emphasis on robots that integrate seamlessly with human workers. Rethink Robotics faced financial challenges and filed for in 2018, after which its , including patents, trademarks, and the Intera software platform, was acquired by the automation firm HAHN Group. HAHN aimed to enhance the technology with expertise for continued in collaborative . In 2019, Brooks co-founded Robust.AI, a company specializing in AI platforms for autonomous mobile robots tailored to warehouse and logistics environments, enabling adaptive behaviors in unstructured settings. As CTO, he has directed efforts toward scalable software that allows robots to learn from human demonstrations and navigate dynamically. In October 2024, Robust.AI launched the Carter Pro, an autonomous mobile robot featuring advanced for collaborative tasks, such as transporting goods with human-guided adjustments and obstacle avoidance in real-time operations. As of 2025, Brooks continues as CTO of Robust.AI, where the company has expanded partnerships, such as with , and secured additional funding to refine its AI-driven solutions. He also maintains advisory influences in the field through keynote speaking engagements, such as at EmTech , and ongoing commentary on trends via his personal blog and publications.

Perspectives on AI

Critiques of Traditional Approaches

Throughout his career, Rodney Brooks has critiqued the classical paradigm, particularly its reliance on the "sense-model-plan-act" cycle prevalent in 1980s and 1990s robotics research. This approach involves sensing the environment, building an internal world model, planning actions symbolically, and then acting, which Brooks argued leads to brittle systems ill-suited for dynamic real-world settings due to the fragility of ungrounded representations and the computational overhead of maintaining accurate models. He emphasized that such methods disconnect from physical interaction, resulting in robots that perform poorly outside controlled simulations, as the world itself serves as the most reliable and up-to-date model without needing abstract intermediaries. In his 2002 book Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, Brooks extended these critiques to disembodied , arguing that intelligence emerges from situatedness—being embedded in and responsive to the physical environment—and , where a robot's body shapes its perceptual and action capabilities. He contended that purely computational, abstract systems fail to capture the nuances of real-world , advocating instead for physically grounded robots that learn through direct interaction. The book also predicted a future of human-robot coexistence by 2025, including robotic enhancements like sensory implants enabling Internet-mediated and , alongside advances that blur human-machine boundaries—aspects of this vision such as widespread consumer have been realized as of 2025, while the more advanced enhancements like telepathy and telekinesis remain unrealized, alongside progress in assistive devices. Brooks championed "Nouvelle AI," a behavior-based approach prioritizing layered, reactive behaviors over symbolic manipulation, as a superior alternative to classical symbolic , which he viewed as overly focused on disembodied reasoning. In 2008 writings, he dismissed chess-like computation as an inadequate for , noting that such narrow, rule-bound tasks lack the embodied environmental coupling essential for broader cognitive capabilities like or social interaction. Brooks' emphasis on practical, incremental robotics over theoretical abstraction was highlighted in his 1997 appearance in the documentary , drawing from his 1989 paper of the same name, which critiqued expensive, centrally planned missions in favor of deploying swarms of simple, autonomous robots for robust exploration. This work underscored his belief in evolutionary, biology-inspired designs—like the subsumption architecture—that enable immediate environmental responsiveness without complex internal models.

Opinions on Contemporary AI

In his blog posts, Rodney Brooks has expressed ongoing skepticism toward the overhyped progress in , particularly in areas like self-driving cars and , through a series of dated predictions he began making in 2018 and updates annually. For instance, in his January 2025 scorecard, Brooks noted delays in achieving full autonomy for self-driving vehicles, with services like operating in , , and at that time. As of November 2025, has expanded fully autonomous ride-hailing to additional cities including , , , , Orlando, Las Vegas, , and , though widespread national deployment remains limited. He similarly predicts that robots capable of dexterous tasks in real-world settings remain decades away, critiquing the hype around lab demonstrations that fail to translate to practical scalability. In June 2024, Brooks stated that people are vastly overestimating generative AI, including large language models (LLMs) like , due to a lack of true understanding and overestimation by observers who anthropomorphize its capabilities. He argued that while LLMs excel at specific tasks, humans err by generalizing competence to broader domains, assuming human-like reasoning where none exists, which leads to inflated expectations about their intelligence. In May 2025, Brooks drew parallels between the hype surrounding generative AI and humanoid robots, noting similar patterns of overoptimism in both fields. Brooks emphasizes the necessity of embodiment for meaningful AI progress, asserting that disembodied systems like generative AI cannot achieve robust real-world intelligence without physical interaction and control mechanisms. Through his company Robust.AI, he advocates for integrated -robotics systems tailored to applications, where optimization algorithms handle high-volume tasks like processing 10,000 orders in two hours far more efficiently than language-based models, which he says would only introduce unnecessary delays.

Awards and Legacy

Honors and Recognition

Rodney Brooks was elected to the in 2004 for his contributions to the foundations and applications of , including the establishment of consumer and hazardous environment industries. Brooks is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Association for the Advancement of (AAAI; founding fellow), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE; fellow and life fellow). His awards include the 1991 Computers and Thought Award from the International Joint Conferences on , the 2008 IEEE Inaba Technical Award for Innovation Leading to Production, the 2014 Engelberger Robotics Award, the 2015 IEEE Robotics and Automation Award for contributions to both the theory and practice of mobile and humanoid robots, the 2023 IEEE Founders Medal, and the 2023 Computer History Museum Fellow Award. Brooks received honorary Doctor of Science degrees from in 2016 and in 2017. Brooks' leadership at , particularly in developing the vacuuming robot, contributed to broader recognition of practical innovations, including the company's impact on consumer robotics markets.

Ongoing Influence

Rodney Brooks maintains an active presence in public discourse on and through his personal at rodneybrooks.com, which he has updated regularly since the . The blog features in-depth analyses of technological trends, including an annual "Predictions Scorecard" that tracks the progress of his forecasts on self-driving cars, , , and timelines originally made in 2018. This scorecard was most recently updated on January 1, 2025, providing a critical assessment of AI development pace amid ongoing hype. Brooks continues to engage audiences through high-profile speaking engagements, such as his participation as a featured speaker at Technology Review's EmTech MIT 2025 conference, where he addressed the future of and the challenges in deploying practical systems. His talks often emphasize grounded expectations for technological advancement, drawing on decades of experience to counter overly optimistic narratives. Brooks' influence extends to open-source initiatives in , notably through the work of his former post-doctoral researchers who initiated the project in , an open-source platform that has facilitated the construction of dozens of such systems worldwide over the past 15 years. This project exemplifies how his mentorship has shaped collaborative, accessible advancements in embodied . Beyond earlier media like the 1997 documentary Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, Brooks has appeared in recent online discussions, such as his November 2023 keynote on titled "Generative Shaping The Future," where he examined the capabilities and limitations of generative models in contexts. These appearances underscore his role in educating broader audiences on realistic trajectories as of 2025.

References

  1. [1]
    [PDF] A Robust Layered Control System for a Mobile Robot
    We call this architecture a subsumption architecture. In such a scheme we have a working control system for the robot very early in the piece as soon as we ...
  2. [2]
    Rodney Brooks - CHM - Computer History Museum
    Rodney Allen Brooks is an Australian computer scientist, AI pioneer, and designer of autonomous robots. He is recognized for his development and practical ...Missing: biography | Show results with:biography
  3. [3]
    Biography of Rodney Brooks | NIST
    Jun 2, 2014 · Rodney Brooks was founder, chairman and chief technology officer of Rethink Robotics, Inc., until October of 2018.
  4. [4]
    Rodney Brooks | American Academy of Arts and Sciences
    Dr. Rodney A. Brooks is the CTO, Chairman, and Founder of Rethink Robotics Inc. Prior to his work with Rethink Robotics Inc., he was the Panasonic Professor ...
  5. [5]
    Rodney Brooks - iRobot - Speaker Details: EmTech MIT 2025
    Dr. Rodney A. Brooks is a pioneering roboticist, computer scientist, and entrepreneur whose work has fundamentally reshaped the robotics industry.
  6. [6]
    Maker Birthdays: Rodney Brooks - Make Magazine
    Nov 20, 2010 · Rodney Brooks (born December 30, 1954, in Adelaide, Australia) has had an impact on robotics and AI matched by few.
  7. [7]
    iRobot: From R2-D2 to practical robots - Fortune
    Aug 14, 2014 · Rodney Brooks: I grew up in Adelaide, Australia. No one in my family had finished high school, and I was smart at mathematics, so I became ...
  8. [8]
    https://fortune.com/2014/08/14/irobot-practical-robots/
  9. [9]
    I, Rodney Brooks, Am a Robot - IEEE Spectrum
    Jun 1, 2008 · A powerful artificial intelligence won't spring from a sudden technological “big bang”—it's already evolving symbiotically with us.Missing: birth | Show results with:birth
  10. [10]
    How the Roomba Sparked a Revolution in AI Robotics with Rodney ...
    (06:14) Rodney's upbringing in Australia and early experiments with computers, robots, and mathematics. (7:19) The era of the computer operator. (9:37) Rodney's ...
  11. [11]
    Rodney Brooks | Biography, Robots, & Facts | Britannica
    Rodney Brooks, Australian computer scientist, artificial intelligence scientist, and designer of mobile autonomous robots. With his students, he created ...
  12. [12]
    Dr Rodney Brooks - Flinders University
    May 18, 2018 · The quiet boy from Glenelg who was fascinated with electronics and harboured an abiding love for maths has become one of the world's leading roboticists.
  13. [13]
    Rodney Brooks Home - People | MIT CSAIL
    Biography. Rodney Brooks is the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (emeritus) at MIT, currently working on his Magnum Opus book--don't hold your breath!
  14. [14]
    [PDF] great expectations - People | MIT CSAIL
    Mar 28, 1988 · Rodney Brooks. Dr. Rodney A. Brooks. Associate Professor. Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Dept. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
  15. [15]
    Professor emeritus Rodney Brooks refines the sequel to iRobot
    Aug 9, 2013 · Professor emeritus Rodney Brooks gained fame in the 1990s for co-founding iRobot, an MIT spinoff that brought the world the Roomba and other ...
  16. [16]
    Rodney Brooks | MIT CSAIL
    Oct 20, 2017 · He held research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and a faculty position at Stanford before joining the faculty of MIT in 1984.
  17. [17]
    Rodney Brooks Leaves MIT, Is Heartland Robotics About To Take Off?
    Jul 9, 2010 · Rodney Brooks Leaves MIT, Is Heartland Robotics About To Take Off? ... According to Xconomy, Brooks is formally retiring from MIT, at age ...
  18. [18]
    [PDF] Brooks - People | MIT CSAIL
    2.1 Traditional to behavior-based: rst shift. In moving from traditional AI to behavior-based robotics, there were both distinct sudden changes in viewpoint ...
  19. [19]
    [PDF] Elephants Don't Play Chess - People | MIT CSAIL
    He is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical. Engineering and Computer Science at M.I.T. and a member of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory where he ...Missing: roles timeline
  20. [20]
    Elephants don't play chess - ScienceDirect.com
    June 1990, Pages 3-15. Robotics and Autonomous Systems. Elephants don't play chess ... Rodney A. Brooks. Symbolic reasoning among 3-D model and 2-D images.
  21. [21]
    Rodney Brooks Bio - People | MIT CSAIL
    Brooks, R. A. Model-Based Computer Vision, UMI Research Press, Spring 1984. Articles in Referred Journals. Brooks, R.A., L. Aryananda, A. Edsinger, P ...
  22. [22]
    [PDF] A Robust Layered Control Syste For A Mobile Robot - Robolabo
    Manuscript revised February 3, 1986. This work was supported in part by ... BROOKS: A ROBUST LAYERED CONTROL SYSTEM FOR A MOBILE ROBOT. 19 robot. I 4. + ...Missing: Rodney | Show results with:Rodney
  23. [23]
    [PDF] How to Build Complete Creatures Rather than Isolated Cognitive ...
    Our first robot, Allen, had sonar distance sensors and odometry onboard and used an offboard lisp machine to simulate the subsumption architecture. In Brooks ( ...
  24. [24]
    [PDF] FAST, CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL: A ROBOT INVASION OF ...
    In essence, the subsumption architecture is a parallel and distributed computational formalism for connecting sensors to actuators in robots. One writes a ...
  25. [25]
    [PDF] The Cog Project: Building a Humanoid Robot
    This research project has two goals: an engineering goal of building a prototype general purpose flexible and dextrous autonomous robot and a scientific goal of ...
  26. [26]
    Press Releases | iRobot
    Founded in 1990 when Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists Colin Angle and Helen Greiner teamed up with their professor Dr. Rodney Brooks, the ...
  27. [27]
    iRobot Celebrates 20 Years of Invention | alum.mit.edu
    Mar 28, 2010 · “In the 90's two MIT grads, Colin Angle ['89, SM '91] and Helen Greiner ['89, SM '90], and their MIT Professor, Rodney Brooks, joined forces ...
  28. [28]
    Rodney Brooks | MIT Technology Review
    Aug 21, 2019 · Rodney Brooks was hot, bored, and isolated at his in-laws' home in Thailand when he had an inspiration that would redirect the field of robotics ...
  29. [29]
    Military Robots and the Laws of War - The New Atlantis
    PackBot made its operational debut on 9/11 when engineers from iRobot drove down to New York City to help in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero.
  30. [30]
    iRobot Unveils Details of Robot Deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan
    Jun 2, 2004 · Over 50 PackBots are deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The robots have assisted in dozens of reconnaissance missions to date, with only one PackBot lost in ...Missing: Ground Zero 2001 War
  31. [31]
    iRobot's PackBot on the front lines - Phys.org
    Feb 24, 2006 · With hundreds of PackBot units currently deployed into Iraq, the robot has gained something of a following among its users. Although several ...Missing: Ground Zero
  32. [32]
    iRobot Celebrates Two Decades of Innovation in Robotics
    Mar 23, 2010 · In 2002, iRobot launched its flagship products, the Roomba(R) floor vacuuming robot and PackBot(R) tactical mobile robot. To date, the ...
  33. [33]
    Subsumption Architecture: How iRobot Enabled Scrum
    Feb 14, 2020 · Rodney Brooks and his graduate students used that space to start iRobot. So I was taught directly by Brooks and his team using the real robots ...
  34. [34]
    iRobot Corp. Initial Public Offering Priced at $24 per Share
    Nov 9, 2005 · – Nov. 9, 2005 – iRobot Corp. (NASDAQ: IRBT) announced today its initial public offering of 4,300,000 shares of common stock, 3,260,870 of ...
  35. [35]
    [PDF] Rodney Brooks Interview Part One - Ars Technica
    So - on to the detailed background of this week's guest, Rodney Brooks. Rob ... I grew up on the South Coast of Australia. At the time, it was actually ...<|separator|>
  36. [36]
    About us - Rethink Robotics
    Founded in 2008 in Boston, Rethink Robotics transformed the robotics landscape. With groundbreaking robots like Baxter and Sawyer, we redefined how people ...
  37. [37]
    Rethink Robotics, Pioneer of Collaborative Robots, Shuts Down
    Oct 4, 2018 · Rodney Brooks's startup developed a new class of factory robots that could safely work alongside people. Then came the hardest part: selling them.
  38. [38]
    HAHN Group Acquires All Technology From Rethink Robotics
    Nov 13, 2018 · As part of the transaction, HAHN Group has acquired all patents and trademarks of Rethink Robotics, as well as its software platform INTERA5, ...
  39. [39]
    Rethink Robotics shuts down -- again - The Robot Report
    Sep 16, 2025 · In 2018, Rethink went bankrupt, and HAHN Group acquired its intellectual property (IP). HAHN Robotics planned to “apply German engineering” to ...
  40. [40]
    Rodney Brooks Explains What Robust.AI Is Actually Doing
    Jul 21, 2022 · Robust.AI was founded three years ago to do, well, nobody was quite sure what. Or rather, some people were quite sure what, and those people ...
  41. [41]
    Rodney Brooks - Founder & CTO @ Robust.AI - Crunchbase
    Rodney Brooks is the Founder & CTO at Robust.AI. Additionally, Rodney Brooks has had 5 past jobs including Co-Founder, Chairman & CTO at Rethink Robotics.
  42. [42]
    Robust.AI Launches Carter™ Pro Robot
    Oct 16, 2024 · SAN CARLOS, Calif. – October 16, 2024 – Robust.AI launched Carter™ Pro a new collaborative robot, combining AI and groundbreaking interaction ...Missing: 2019 | Show results with:2019
  43. [43]
    Robust.AI expands Carter robot capabilities, adds investors
    Apr 23, 2025 · Robust.AI today announced upgrades to its flagship Carter robotic cart, new funding, and positive results from its partnership with DHL Supply Chain.
  44. [44]
    Blog - Rodney Brooks
    Rodney Brooks' blog discusses AI, including AI's great expectations, the current hype around Generative AI and Humanoid Robots, and his view that intelligence ...
  45. [45]
    Review of Flesh and Machines How Robots Will Change Us
    Review of Flesh and Machines How Robots Will Change Us. by Rodney A. Brooks. (Pantheon Books, 2002, $26.00, 288 pages). books. Reviewed by Dr. Fred BortzMissing: critique disembodied
  46. [46]
    Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01 - Rodney Brooks
    Jan 1, 2025 · The scorecard reviews predictions from 2018 on self-driving cars, robotics, AI, and human space travel. New predictions will be made for 2026- ...
  47. [47]
    MIT robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks thinks people are vastly ...
    Jun 29, 2024 · Robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks thinks people are overestimating generative AI's capabilities and it's time to put the brakes on the hype.
  48. [48]
    Dr. Rodney A. Brooks
    ### Summary of Rodney Brooks' Election to NAE and Honors
  49. [49]
    Three faculty members elected to NAE - MIT News
    Feb 19, 2004 · Rodney A. Brooks, CSAIL director and the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science, for "contributions to the foundations and applications of ...
  50. [50]
    Honorary degree recipients - Flinders University
    Sep 22, 2025 · Honorary degree recipients. About Governance Awards and prizes Honorary degree recipients ... Rodney Brooks, BSc, MA Flin, PhD Stanford, DSc 2015; ...
  51. [51]
    Flinders honours three of its own at April graduations – News
    Apr 12, 2016 · Awarded the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa for his work in the field of robotics, Professor Rodney Brooks graduated from Flinders ...
  52. [52]
    MIT Technology Review's EmTech MIT 2025 - PR Newswire
    Oct 22, 2025 · Featured speakers include: Rodney Brooks, CTO and Cofounder, Robust.AI; Cofounder, iRobot; Frank McCourt Jr,. Founder, Project Liberty; Fiona ...
  53. [53]
    Session Details: EmTech MIT 2025 - MIT Technology Review
    We will explore how purpose-built robots are delivering ROI, which AI components actually work, and why hardware timelines aren't exponential. Close.Missing: keynote future
  54. [54]
    Why Today's Humanoids Won't Learn Dexterity - Rodney Brooks
    Sep 26, 2025 · The idea is that humanoid robots will share the same body plan as humans, and will work like humans in our built for human environment. This ...
  55. [55]
    Fields of Color, 3rd edition: Rodney A. Brooks - Amazon.com
    Book details ; Print length. 187 pages ; Language. English ; Publisher. Epsilon Publishers ; Publication date. November 11, 2020 ; ISBN-10. 0473179768.
  56. [56]
    Generative AI Shaping The Future Keynote: Rodney Brooks - YouTube
    Dec 18, 2023 · Our mission is to advance knowledge; to educate students in science, engineering, technology, humanities and social sciences; and to tackle ...Missing: National Academy<|control11|><|separator|>
  57. [57]
    What does the future hold for generative AI? | MIT News
    Nov 29, 2023 · Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot, kicks off an MIT symposium on ... associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and an ...