Adam A. Stokes
Welcome to my personal webpage, where you’ll find a collection of essays on topics that I’m trying to understand. These essays are not static publications, they are live documents and will be continually updated.
If you wish to discuss anything I’ve written then my primary email address is a.a.stokes@ed.ac.uk.
(Re)Designing the Tree of Robotic Life: What can robotic system designers learn from evolutionary biology?
The tree of life forms a concise snapshot of the history, and linkages between, all life forms on Earth. Another way to look at this diagram is to imagine what the world would have been like if history had played out differently. If the evolutionary game was run again, how would the same fundamental building blocks have combined, given different selective pressures and exogenous shocks? This research question exists at the intersection of evolutionary biology, engineering, and design, and over the last few years I have begun to ponder the question when set in the context of robotics. We (my research group and colleagues from around the world) are seeking to answer this question with the aim of challenging existing notions of what robots are, how they are designed, built, and controlled, and how they interact with their environment. We ran a workshop on this topic at the 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) conference in Yokohama called "(Re)...
Which new technologies are pushing the boundaries?
The Digital Frontiers Showcase celebrated the fact that 2023 marked the sixtieth anniversary of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence activities at the University of Edinburgh. The showcase consisted of talks and panel discussions with the University’s world leading experts in data science and digital technologies including AI, Quantum Computing, robotics and novel chip architecture. The programme provided a realistic roadmap for some of the profound long-term impacts that the research that is pushing the boundaries may bring for businesses and society. It also covered some of the novel solutions and capabilities that will be deployed in the near term to transform our approaches to the climate crisis and fundamental challenges in health and healthcare. In this essay I provide my current thinking on the central question: “Which new technologies are pushing the boundaries?”. This is a live essay and the content will be updated as my thinking evolves. Link to panel discussion. ...
What would it mean to live well with robots?
In this essay I add some details and reflections on a panel discussion, hosted by Edinburgh Futures Institute, among five experts on what it means to ‘live well’ with robots. The conversation explored the technical, moral, social and economic dimensions of the oft-promised ‘robot revolution’. This is a live document and I’ll continue to update the essay as my thinking evolves. Link to the recording. Will human beings ever embrace robots as a daily part of our social and economic lives? What would it mean to live well with robots? How can we ensure that robot design and development is driven by and aligned with our fundamental human needs, such as security and social connection? Where are robots already transforming our lives in ways we may not recognize, and which of our ideas about robots remain mere science fiction fantasies? Where can tomorrow’s robots make the world a better place, and most importantly, better for whom?
The Future of Robotics Does not Belong to Roboticists
I delivered the opening plenary talk at RoboSoft 2024 with this provocation: “The future of robotics does not belong to roboticists". My talk provided my personal reflections and insights into the progression, potential, and intricacies of soft-robotics. In keeping with the central theme of the 2024 conference I placed particular emphasis on the use of bioinspired and fluidic technologies in the context of exploration. A central feature of my talk was the use of a list of “propositions”; a technique that is widely used in The Netherlands, but rarely used elsewhere. I really appreciate the concision of a list of propositions, they provide succinct and definitive statements which describe the central thesis and learnings from a body of work. Before delivering my talk I distributed print-outs of the propositions to the audience, so they were aware of the structure and so that they had a physical copy of the key points. A link to the hand-out is here. In this essay I aim to add some of...