"Computer! Turn on the lights!" Rodney Brooks, director of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory-the largest A.I. lab in the world-strides into his ninth-floor office in Cambridge, MA. Despite his demand, the room stays dark. "Computer!" he repeats, sitting down at the conference table.

"I'malreadylistening," comes a HAL-like voice from the wall. Brooks redirects his request toward a small microphone on the table, this time enunciating more clearly: "Turn on the lights!"

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