George A. Bekey (19 June 1928 – 17 October 2024) was an American roboticist and the professor of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California.

Life and career

Bekey was born in Bratislava on 19 June 1928, before immigrating at the beginning of World War II to Bolivia before moving to the United States five years later at the age of 17 in 1945. In 1989, Bekey became a member of the National Academy of Engineering for pioneering work in computer sciences contributing to biomedical engineering, man-machine systems, and robotics. He was also a Fellow of various professional societies. Bekey is best known for his achievements across multiple technical fields, for which he was designated a USC University Professor, which honors the university's most accomplished, multi-disciplinary faculty. He was also affiliated with the College of Engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he taught a course on world religions. One of his later books is Autonomous Robots: From Biological Inspiration to Implementation and Control from MIT Press. Bekey died on 17 October 2024, at the age of 96.

Robot ethics

Later, he concerned himself with the ethics and social aspects of robots as they play more of a role in different aspects of human life, realising an edited text bringing together some of the key thinkers in the field including James Hughes, Selmer Bringsjord, Kevin Warwick, Peter Asaro and Noel Sharkey.

Education

Professional organizations

Awards