Peddling his own brand of pessimistic futurism that predicts humanity's imminent enslavement to intelligent machines, Kevin Warwick is one of the world's most famous living scientists.
A professor of cybernetics at Reading University, he's also considered an expert in robotics, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience, and is a regular fixture on British TV and in newspapers and magazines around the globe.
He's also become a lightning rod for criticism. In February, a group of British technology journalists launched Kevin Warwick Watch, a site devoted to making fun of Warwick's "media junkie" reputation by tracking his movements across the media landscape.
The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/, a British technology news site, has also run a series of articles critical of Warwick.
"He's one of the most publicly recognized robotocists but his work doesn't really back it up," said technology journalist Dave Green, who helped launch Kevin Warwick Watch. "The man is a total media junkie."
Last year Warwick made a huge splash by declaring himself the world's first cyborg after a surgeon implanted a radio transmitter under his skin.
In February, he was featured on the cover of Wired magazine for a story about a new chip implant that may allow him, among other things, to have trans-Atlantic cybersex with his wife.
More recently, Warwick generated headlines when his robot cat was barred from British Airways. He also claimed that television can improve students' test grades, that cyberdrugs will soon be downloadable from the Internet (see also the Observer's version), and that humans could shortly become remote-controlled.
His fame has earned him awards, honorary degrees, and most recently, an opportunity to present this year's prestigious Royal Institute Christmas Lectures, which are broadcast to schools around the United Kingdom.
But as Warwick's star has risen, so has the level of criticism.
Kevin Warwick Watch asks correspondents to "scan the world's media for sightings of this historic figure, and build up a comprehensive picture of his 'activities.'"
"His predictions that robots will take over the world in the next 10 years are combined with really ineffectual demonstrations of robots' power," Green said. "That's the contradiction that makes Kevin so appealing to us. His predictions are so extraordinary but his demonstrations are so everyday."
As an example, Green cited a marathon-running robot whose infrared detectors were supposed to lock onto Warwick as he jogged but instead focused on the sun, causing the robot to run itself into the ground.
Green also gets a kick out of Warwick's gloomy predictions, which he said appear to be gleaned from "cheap paperbacks and movies."
The site, Green said, is "an extraordinary catalog of doomsaying."
"It's like he stayed up too late with some friends, smoking something and watching the Terminator, and came to the conclusion that, 'Yeah, my God, this really could happen.'
"Put forward in fiction, these ideas can be quite interesting, but to see these ideas put forward by someone who's supposed to be a serious theorist... ."
Speaking from his home in Reading, Warwick said he likes the site and uses it to keep track of his clippings.
"I think it's quite nice really," he said. "It's pretty good. I feel a bit of a celebrity in a way. I think it gives me some street cred."
Warwick said he especially liked the site's pictures, which portray him as a demented Borg-like cyborg.
"I don't mind them having a go and commenting," he said. "It seems to be a distinctly British trait -- to shoot the pigeon, to knock down people in the media a bit."
Green said Kevin Warwick Watch is not so much an indictment of Warwick, but of the press who treat him as the "voice of the future."
"Most technology reporting is awful," he said. "The specialist coverage is dull, understandably so, and the mainstream coverage is appallingly clueless. If Kevin Warwick Watch is a criticism of anyone, it's the newspapers and magazines that blatantly follow this stuff without questioning things more."
Meanwhile, Warwick is also creating waves among some colleagues in academia, who say he isn't qualified to be called an expert in neuroscience and AI, and that his doom-laden proclamations misrepresent the fields he embodies.
"The scientists I deal with generally groan when Kevin Warwick comes out with another stunt," said Inman Harvey, a senior research fellow at Sussex University's Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics. "He seems to be just a buffoon with a good line in hoodwinking the media into thinking that what he is doing is cutting-edge science."
In an email, Harvey said Warwick has never once designed or built a robot, that his chip implant experiments are "clearly of no scientific relevance whatsoever -- merely a media-puller," and that his opinions about AI and robotics are "ludicrously quaint, old-fashioned fantasies, real flat-Earth stuff."
Alan Bundy, a professor at the University of Edinburgh's informatics division, said Warwick's predictions about AI make him look "silly -- and, by reflection, the science he misrepresents."
Richard Reeve, also of Edinburgh, points out that while Warwick is often quoted in the press as an expert in AI, robotics, and neuroscience, he has published papers primarily in control theory, a branch of applied mathematics. Of 20 papers published in the last four years, 14 are engineering papers, four are editorials, and only two are about AI, Reeve said.
"The vast array of newspaper articles and television performances he gives as a cybernetics expert are not backed up by academic articles," Reeves said in an email.
Warwick countered that he has both built and overseen the building of a number of robots.
"It's a load of tosh. It's ridiculous," he said. "Something like that sounds like academic jealousy, to be honest."
However, when pressed, Warwick said: "I run the group (at Reading). It doesn't mean I sit down with the soldering iron every day in the lab with a white coat and a German accent. It's a team effort and I feel I'm an important part of the team."
Warwick also defended his implant experiments, saying they advance knowledge of cybernetics and may one day help with the development of artificial prosthetics.
He acknowledged that most of his papers are in control theory, but said those in the last four or five years have been about neural networks.
"I'm happy with my academic record," he said. "I've published widely."
As for misrepresenting robotics and AI in the press, Warwick said he never professes to speak for the community as a whole, and that he is entitled to express his ideas.
"It's daft," he said. "I shouldn't be required to put forward other people's opinions. It's crazy to say that.
"You put forward your own opinion and that's it," he said. "I think if people have a different opinion, then let them stand up and be counted."
Warwick said he sees a lot of overlap between his ideas and those of Bill Joy, Ray Kurzweil, and Hans Morovec.
He's been surprised by the criticism.
"None of them have said anything to me," he said. "I'm not going to get into some sideline, trivial argument. I've got research that I want to get on with and that's the important thing for me."
