Meet the innovators who have shaped our shared future with robots and AI-powered companions

Robotics and artificial intelligence are reshaping our lives at a pace that is both awe-inspiring and daunting. Humanoid robot funding has nearly quadrupled in recent years, drones fill the skies, and a wave of bots now inhabit our digital spaces. In this new era, everyone seems to be talking about how to use this technology and its benefits and pitfalls. But they fail to go behind the scenes of the robotics and AI revolution to share the stories of the people building it.

In My Robot Friends, Dr. Laura Scherling provides fascinating insight into robotics and AI by profiling eight pioneering individuals across four continents. Drawing on original, in-depth interviews, Scherling explores the lives and careers of the innovators who created chatbots long before ChatGPT, built human-like androids, developed the military PackBot, built the first drone in central Africa, developed carebots that support older adults, and more.

Through the stories of these impactful inventors, engineers, and designers, My Robot Friends shows how robotics and AI are changing companionship, caregiving, security, and human identity-and asks what guardrails responsible technology now needs. Written in a narrative style and grounded in the innovators' personal perspectives, historical research, and academic literature, it offers readers a human portrait of emerging technologies that will shape the rest of the century.