CBC Doc Zone - Roboticize Me (2015)

Imagine your own robotic identical twin.

How about a robot that does household drudge work - or cuddles up next to you? Interested? Intrigued? Well it’s not too far away. A robot revolution is upon us. And it’s guaranteed to change the way we see ourselves. Robots have become our colleagues, even our companions. Some look like animals or toys. But others look disturbingly like us. All of them have been developed to act like us, feel and think like us. Why? What’s driving our need to develop intelligent and emotional machines?

What was once fiction is now fact. We are on the verge of a brave new world of human-robot relationships. It’s already starting to happen – we are developing real attachments to our technical inventions. And the balance of power between “us” and “them” could shift in a second.

Roboticize Me is a provocative, intelligent and often amusing exploration into this emerging universe. And it’s probably the first documentary ever co-hosted by a robot. Canadian Screen Award winning comedic actor Peter Keleghan - with his android sidekick RoboThespian™ - take us on a trip through a wild new world of robotics.

We visit the epicentre of all thing robotic - Japan. In a country where acceptance of robots is rooted in faith, we meet a scientist who’s built his own robotic doppelganger and visit a cabaret show where the metallic stars upstage the human dancers.

In Los Angeles, UCLA roboticist Dennis Hong is called “The Wizard of Robots”. Hong has designed more than 20 droids, from the diminutive soccer playing robot Darwin, to the life sized rescue bot named THOR. San Francisco has a Robot Film Festival that mixes science and show business. In Boston, an interactive robot is changing the way we work. And in Canada, we’ll catch up with a cute little traveller named hitchBOT who made robot history by crossing the country.

Yet as we continue to develop and improve our mechanical creations, we are pushing ethical and legal boundaries. Some believe we are offloading our human responsibilities. Others say robots will soon replace us in factories, battlefields, even the bedroom. Join us as we discover the rise of robots … and the changing relationship between man and machine.

Roboticize Me was written, produced and directed by Marcy Cuttler and Jackie Carlos for CBC-TV.