NEXT STEP: SOCIAL ROBOTICS & CYBORG

NEWS!

Dates
17-22 February 2025

Location
IAAD. Turin

THEME AREA

Ghost in the design: crafting humanity in the machine

As AI-powered design crosses into robotics, designers shape both digital and physical experiences in new ways, blurring boundaries between humans and machines. This evolution prompts designers to think not only about aesthetics but also about ethics, utility, and the future of human-robot interactions. How will we infuse machines with elements of human touch, empathy, and purpose? Which is the delicate balance of crafting technology that resonates with human values, ethics, and aesthetics?

WORKSHOP

Biological and technological evolution are converging to generate the next evolutionary step: social robots and cyborgs. In this workshop we address the prerogatives and problems related to the design of these new creatures.

During the workshop:

1. History and basic concepts of robotics and cyborgs

2. Analysis of the design choices that a designer of social robots and cyborgs must necessarily face.

3. Design of social robots (6 working groups) in the following areas: entertainment, therapy and rehabilitation, assistance for the elderly or disabled, domestic collaboration, romantic-love relationships, military applications

4. V.I.P Cyborg. All participants will collaborate on the cyborg enhancement of Alessandro Colombo (IAAD. director) and Gianpaolo Barozzi (IAAD. strategic director).

Interventions by Fondazione Links and Gruppo Tim are planned.

TEAM LEADER

Massimo Morelli

A philosopher by training, he is the owner of a digital marketing agency with a strong propensity for new technologies (Pensativa). With this, he participated in the creation of one of the first immersive reality applications for institutional communication (Piedmont for Real, presented in New Delhi with a Ciampi delegation in 2005) and of some semantic ontologies (in collaboration with the University of Turin). Already a teacher and coordinator of bachelor and master courses in IAAD., for some years he has been involved in investigating the possible areas of intersection between digital systems (more or less intelligent), neuroscience, linguistics and design. Since 2023 he has been part of the think tank FerpiLab.

RESULTS

Robots are an immense mirror in which humanity as a whole has loved to reflect and contemplate itself for some time now. This is why a week-long workshop on social robotics is an extraordinary opportunity for self-knowledge for the kids who participate, for the teachers who delude themselves into ‘guiding’ them, and for the IAAD university as a living educational organism. So, after a laborious historical-conceptual excursus on the history of robotics, after meetings with experts from the Links Foundation and the TIM Group, and above all after the passionate team work sessions, what have we learned?

Many things: for example, that the yearning for expressive grace can take the form of an exoskeleton that teaches your muscle memory the subtle art of hand drawing. Or that a parrot-robot, whose inertial systems allow it to remain balanced on a human’s shoulder, can drastically improve the quality of life of a blind person. Or that a robotic pet-sitter can become the best friend of a dog and its ‘owner’, even taking care of removing the fateful shit from the sidewalk. But the most important thing we have learned is not to be afraid of robots, but of the same human fears that robots tend to mirror. We have learned that the world of robots and artificial intelligence is not someone else’s world that we are kindly invited to enter, but our own world that we are, always kindly, invited to create.