Adam A. Stokes’ Essays: Thinking in public
Keynote Talks
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...
What would it mean to live well with robots?
In this live essay I add some more 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 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...
Leadership
I’m delighted… no really!
I’m delighted... A phrase that, to me, bears the hallmarks of yet another shameless self-congratulatory LinkedIn post. There is so much delight on LinkedIn. It’s become the default way of starting a post - I’m delighted… It’s lost all meaning, to the point of...
Wintering and reflecting on a year in post as Head of The Institute for Bioengineering
Below is a letter sent to my institute in January 2026 after a year in post as Head of The Institute for Bioengineering. It serves a purpose as an open letter on my reflections of 2025. Dear colleagues, Welcome back. I hope the winter break brought you a great...
Bioengineering, Bioinspiration, and Biomimetics
I made a significant career shift in January 2025: moving towards Bioengineering, Bioinspiration, and Biomimetics. I was appointed as Head of The Institute for Bioengineering at The University of Edinburgh. This live essay covers my motivation for this shift and...
Research
Local and Global Optima: What “Best” Means at the Edge
Ask an engineer for the best solar cell and, if they are honest about what "best" means, they will ask a question back: best under what constraints? That return question is the subject of this third essay in my techno-crofting series. Most of the difficulty in...
Techno-Crofting: Techno-Humanism and Living Well at the Edge of the System
From Systems to Societies In my previous post on techno‑crofting I began to write about systems: energy, food, materials, the flows that have to cross the boundary when you live at the edge. But systems aren’t the whole story. People have to want to live with them....
Techno‑Crofting: Building What We Need at the Edge
What is techno-crofting? There is a tiny brewery on the shore of a sea loch in the north-west Highlands that has been bothering me for years (full disclosure: it belongs to my parents). It bothers me, not because of the beer—which is excellent—but because of what it...
(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...
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship
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