In this episode we talk to Michael Arbib who is the Fletcher Jones professor of computer science, as well as a professor of biological sciences, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, neuroscience and psychology at the University of Southern California where he is also the director of the USC Brain Project. He’s been inspiring roboticists around the world with his research in neuroscience especially on mirror systems. He gives us insight as to why we cry at the movies and how imitation and language acquisition might have came about in humans or monkeys. From the neurons to the machines and from “faked” emotions to real ones, he gives us his view on robots today and tomorrow.

Related episodes:

• Robots: 50 Years of Robotics (Part 1) -- 23 April, 2010
• Robots: The Future of Artificial Intelligence -- 12 March, 2010
• Robots: Learning -- 20 November, 2009
• Talking Robots: Blue Brain Robotics -- 9 May, 2008
• Talking Robots: Personal Robots -- 11 April, 2008