La robotica sociale verso la sostenibilità. Approcci sistemici, applicazioni pratiche e implicazioni etiche

The climate emergency of our times has raised environmental, social, and political concerns about the health of our planet. At the same time, on the one hand recent years have brought an increase in technology solutions that can contribute to the problems of sustainability: green and digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and robotics are advancing and spreading rapidly in societies, changing our way of living in the world; on the other hand, these same technologies are one of the causes of the problem of sustainability. If, within the domain of scientific literature, the role these technologies play in sustainability is affirmed, the literature nevertheless appears to be lacking in a comprehensive approach regarding the role of social robotics in addressing the specific issues of sustainability. In this context the aim of the thesis is twofold: firstly, to explore the complex function of social robotics in contemporary society, reconsidering the role these new technologies may assume for sustainability, particularly in its environmental and social dimension; secondly, to provide a set of guidelines aimed at enhancing the environmental, economic, social, and ethical sustainability of the social robot design process.