Rodney Brooks

All of us have sci-fi fantasies about what the future will look like. “Flying cars” make frequent appearances, pill and much of the rest is also a variation on The Jetsons. High on the wish list, of course, is Rosie, the robotic maid. Push the time frame out far enough — fifty years, a hundred years, two hundred years — and most people will say that this kind of progress is inevitable. But Rodney Brooks, creator of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, reminds us that nothing is “inevitable.” Somebody with a concrete vision of the future has to build it.