Auke Ijspeert is a professor at the EPFL (the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne), and head of the Biorobotics Laboratory (BioRob). Auke is interested in using numerical simulations and robots to get a better understanding of animal locomotion and movement control, and in using inspiration from biology to design novel types of robots and locomotion controllers.

His popular TED Talk of the robot that runs and swims like a salamander has been viewed nearly 2M times and he has won close to 20 awards, including the University of Edinburgh "robot-rugby" competition 1996, the best paper award at the IEEE-RAS Humanoids 2007 conference and the Overall Best Paper Award (out of 1,172 submitted, 689 accepted papers) at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2002).

He is member of the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science magazine, and associate editor for Soft Robotics and for the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics. He has acted as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Robotics (2009-2013) and as a guest editor for the Proceedings of IEEE, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Autonomous Robots, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, and Biological Cybernetics. He has been the organizer of 6 international conferences and been a program committee member of over 50 conferences.





You can listen right here on iTunes

In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:

* The purpose and value of biomicking robots
* Why Auke is worried about drones and robots in future battlefields
* The difference between theory and practice for robot design
* Why Auke works with AI researchers but not that closely
* How we should think about regulating robotics
* Why Auke thinks we're still a long way off from AGI
* The problem with scientists and researchers forgetting to think about ethics
* When we can expect large scale robotics in modern life
* Why C3PO isn't an ideal answer to home robotics
* How hype cycles drive robotics and tech development and
* Why AI research and progress may in fact be slowing down
* The reason Auke is so excited and optimistic about autonomous vehicles
* Why scientists are fascinated and frustrated with Boston Dynamics






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