I had a very mixed reaction to this book. I'm into Philip K. Dick, I am interested in artificial intelligence and robotics, and this book delivered lots of repeatable factoids in those arenas. BUT it also kept rubbing me the wrong way. I understand that this is a book of non-fiction and that the major players in this story were all cis white men. BUT even when women did show up, the way they were written about left a bad taste in my mouth. And they didn't show up very often. A series of Hanson's ex-girlfriends, mostly unnamed, who serve as models for Hanson's early robotic heads. Olney's wife, who is mentioned mostly in the context of being annoyed when he isn't home for dinner. Matthew's girlfriend, who does at least get a name (Sarah Petschonek), but is described ONLY as his girlfriend, DESPITE THE FACT that she also works in the same building, so undoubtably has SOME area of expertise or life of her own, even if it isn't robotics. AND THEN there is the conversational "AI" program the author mentions writing in class, who is gendered as female and whose entire "personality" is making computer-pun come-ons? I didn't set out looking for it, but all the same it became EXHAUSTING. I wanted to like this more, because the topic was deeply interesting, but it was just okay. ( )

A competent retelling of the story behind the project of making a PKD talking head. When I read about it on the news back in the day I thought it was a research experiment but it looks like it was more of an art installation. None of the software running it was cutting edge. It amazes me how siloed academia seems to be and completely unaware of the state of the art in the real world. ( )

How to Build an Android: The True Story of Philip K. Dick's Robotic Resurrection by David F. Dufty covers the creation of a robotic incarnation of the famous sci-fi author which (according to its creators) has the ability to learn as it communicates with humans i.e. it is self-aware. The novelty of this machine was that it was created in the image of a man who was known for his paranoia about 'thinking' machines and that it was an artistic as much as technological acheivement. This book chronicled the creation of the android from its inception including the sculpting of the head and body by Dr. David Hanson through to its programming by Andrew Olney. (Not to mention the many volunteers from the FedEx Institute of Technology in Memphis who logged many hours helping to make this dream a reality without any compensation.) The PKD android was a sensation among scientific circles as well as among laypeople because of his realistic facial features, expressions, and his seemingly intelligent responses to questions. However, I am not convinced that he would have passed the Turing Test which proves that he was a self-aware artificially intelligent machine. Moreover, I found this book was lacking in many areas. Each of the chapters seemed to end without any real resolution and the ending fell flat. Also, one of my pet peeves is a nonfiction book without any endnotes or at the very least a bibliography and this one committed that sin. Overall, I'd say that this book would appeal to someone who hasn't done any significant research into this field and wants to dip their toe into that world but for me it didn't make the grade. 5/10

If you want to see the PKD android in action then you can check out the Hanson Robotics website. Be forewarned, if the idea of a seemingly artificially intelligent machine with human-like characteristics freaks you out then you shouldn't go to that website. To see what I mean, take a look at the pictures below. *shudder* ( )

In the early 2000s, a team of roboticists and AI researchers built a talking, interactive android replica of science fiction author Philip K. Dick. If you're familiar with Dick's work at all, you probably understand immediately just how surreally appropriate that is. If you're not, well, it's not at all easy to describe succinctly, but let's just say it wouldn't be remotely surprising for any of his characters to discover at any time that they'd been a robot all along.

To make the whole story even weirder, they then managed to lose the android's head on an airplane, and it hasn't been seen since.

There would seem to be absolute no way for this story not to be utterly fascinating, especially for someone with an interest in robots and artificial intelligence, which I certainly am. Especially after you add in all the bizarre-but-true details, like the way David Byrne and the Talking Heads keep randomly popping up, or the way one of Robot Phil's developers once programmed a novelty singing fish to teach physics.

And yet, on the whole, I found this book a little disappointing. The writing is pretty bland, and it feels as if what would have worked well as a long magazine article suffered rather badly from being stretched out to full book length. I really don't think we needed to know all all about the phone calls they made to trucking companies about moving the android's soundproofed room around, or the blow-by-blow details of how that room was loaded on the truck, for instance.

Much more interesting were the descriptions of how the android was programmed (even if that was only outlined in very broad terms), its interactions with people, and the various nifty, high-tech stuff on display at the shows and events they took it to. And it's hard not to be weirdly captivated by the idea of its disappearance, even to indulge in flights of fancy about what it might be up to.

There's also some decent (if not very deep) discussion of Dick's life and work here. Still. This book seems like it should have been mind-blowing. And, at best, it manages to be unevenly interesting. ( )

I think after a year of attempted reads I can finally state: could not finish.

I don't know, it just wasn't as interesting as I thought it was going to be. I picked it up because I like Philip K. Dick, and I do like androids. But I guess I'm not that into android nonfiction.

It's not you, its me.

( )