Ciao Robot, The Birth of Roboethics

Authors: Gianmarco Veruggio, Fiorella Operto
Director: Manuel Stefanolo
Editor: Manuel Stefanolo
Executive Producer: Scuola di Robotica (School of Robotics)
Producer: Wodan Produzioni
Photography: Tommaso Miglio
Music: Methodo
Sound: Piero Trofa, Mirko Zucchetto

Italy 53 min. 2008

Roboethics is a fast growing field with a focus on ethical, legal, economic and social aspects of robotics. To create awareness of the issues before it is too late, Ciao Robot is a documentary featuring a number of prominent scientists and scholars of humanities discussing these relevant issues.

Robots are the most powerful machines ever built and soon they will be used in all fields. Though they are already playing a key role in the lives of some individuals, thanks to mass production and ongoing technical advances they are destined to change the lives of many.

Ciao Robot tells the story of some people who collaborate or live with robots or robotics devices, such as disabled athletes with limb prostheses: in this area, such advanced results have been achieved that it is currently debated whether these athletes may be able to perform better than normally-abled people.

Robots have become a precious aid for civil defence, as happened during relief operations after 9/11. What’s more, robotic surgery - which is already being successfully performed for some procedures - seems bound to become widely implemented because it ensures highly positive and precise outcomes and is minimally invasive.

And now even the war industry is increasingly focusing on robots...

Through the testimony of some of the most prominent robotics experts of the world (Veruggio, Inoue, Siciliano, Takanishi, Arkin, Murphy, Dario, Christensen, etc.) this documentary also tries to investigate what the next developments in the field of ‘smart machines’ will be and what scenarios they may lead to. Will humankind be capable of using this technology with wisdom? World-wide scientists, philosophers and artists were asked to give an answer, including US writer Bruce Sterling, Belgian physicist Jean-Pierre Stroot, Spanish philosopher José Maria Galvan, science historian Paolo Rossi and others.

Photo gallery

Ciao Robot

Ciao Robot al Festival della Scienza, Sanremo 2007