The pursuit of excellence does not need justification
In 2017, we were building a humanoid robot that hit the limits of Google's Dialogflow for natural language processing, and I used to joke that machines would never hold a human conversation. But today, LLMs do, and much more: they tackle research-level mathematics and novel reasoning puzzles, and are beginning to free us from the drudgery of digital work.
I believe robots will do the same in the physical world, and when machines do all of this, I think what is left for us is to play as artists. To help realize that, I develop algorithms for robots, embracing agentic software engineering. What I learn along the way, I keep in the open as RoboThesis.
My postdoc was on robotic ultrasound scanning at Johns Hopkins University, and my Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Robotics on surgical laser robots at the Italian Institute of Technology and the University of Genova. Before that I was part of teams working on tele-robotics, a legged robot and a medical device.