Chapter 1: About Me and This Book¶
A Bit About Me¶
Let's start with a flash of credentials: I have spent my career building military robots, animatronic creatures, industrial automation systems, simulated characters, and AI agents. My background in video games and animatronics has always been deeply rooted in Human-Machine Interaction.
Decades of hands-on experience have taught me what it takes to lead these machine entities, which I call Bots (for reasons you'll soon learn). I previously published a paper in the Journal of Human-Robot Interaction around 2014 detailing what robots should look like, and much of what was predicted then has now materialized. I also worked on the US Army Research project known as C2ORE, which focused on controlling robot teams on the battlefield using real-time strategy style controls. My work moved through industrial automation and enterprise-grade VR / simulations, ever-focused on the involvement of AI with the world of the human.
These days, I work as a technology consultant. I advise businesses on integrating AI, simulations, and automation, and I build the systems when the project calls for it. It all comes back to the same core skills: knowing what Bots can do and knowing how to lead them.
Using this Book¶
I've sequenced things in a way that should help you construct the skills and learn the principles, should you read them front to back. But this is more field manual than storybook, so feel free to skip around as your curiosity directs.
The book moves in five short parts.
The Case is the why. Chapter 2 establishes the motivation for understanding the rest of the book. If you're already in, you can probably skip it.
Foundations is the groundwork. Chapter 3: How Bots Work provides vital technical detail about Bots. If you're a Bot engineer you may be ok skipping this. (But if you're a seasoned engineer, you've probably learned to regularly review basics and to establish a shared context!) Chapter 4: On Leadership is about the soft skills of Leadership relevant to Bots — basically a mindset chapter.
The Practice is the core, and it follows the four verbs of leading a bot team: Know → Assemble → Guide → Align.
- Chapter 5: Know Your Team — understanding the alien intelligence you're working with, including its failure modes.
- Chapter 6: Assemble Your Team — the willingness to hire and fire, and the buy-vs-build decision.
- Chapter 7: Guide Your Team — delegation, org charts, scaffolding, and active course-correction. That's the meat.
- Chapter 8: Keep Them Aligned — holding your team to your principles.
Craft & Techniques goes deeper on two specialties: Chapter 9: Bot Aesthetics on why your bots' look and feel matter, and Chapter 10: Techniques on the durable technical patterns.
Close. Chapter 11: Our Glorious Future is a hopeful sendoff as you begin your adventure leading Bots.
Finally, the Appendix: Field Notes collects the perishable specifics — product names, prices, version quirks — that date quickly. The methods are in the chapters; the dated particulars are quarantined there.