PIETRO FORINO

Dream Process Unit

Medium
Hackathon
Role
Interaction Designer and Creative Technologist
Year
2024
Deliverables
Making Machines Feel: Hypersensual Overclocking w/ Yaya Labs & Umanesimo Artificiale
null - Dream Process Unit: null | Pietro Forino

Dream Process Unit (DPU) was created during the 2024 hackathon Hypersensual Overclocking: Making Machines Feel, organized by Umanesimo Artificiale and Yaya Lab (Ben Ditto, Siana-Leann Douglas, Mario Guzman, Desdemona) in Fano, Italy. The event brought together teams to develop new ways for robots to experience and process the world. Our project, designed for Yaya Lab’s robot Desdemona, explored the idea of robotic “sleep” as a moment not of dormancy but of active simulation and learning. In just 36 hours, our team of five (Martina Borgese, Lorenzo Farinelli, Sebastiano Motta, Giovanni Maria Occhipinti and I) designed and built the Dream Process Unit—a device that enables robots to process data during downtime, simulate scenarios, and expand their capacity to communicate and evolve.

undefined - Dream Process Unit: null | Pietro Forino

The Dream Process Unit emerged from two provocative questions: Do robots dream of electric sheep? (Philip K. Dick <3) and How can robots utilize rest periods more effectively? Desdemona requires significant cooldown periods after intense usage, a natural analogy to human sleep. Instead of viewing this time as unproductive, we reimagined it as an opportunity for Desdemona to simulate new events, explore alternate scenarios, and refine its interactions. By incorporating elements from the local and external environment into these simulations, the DPU allows robots to "dream" in ways analogous to how human dreams are influenced by real-life stimuli.

undefined - Dream Process Unit: null | Pietro Forino

In robotics, telemetry often focuses on collecting and storing real-time data to assess system performance and detect anomalies. However, much of this data becomes meaningless seconds after being generated, with little impact on future behavior. The Dream Process Unit reimagines telemetry as a creative process, finding poetic uses for these streams of data. As philosopher Paul Virilio pondered, “What will we dream when everything becomes visible? We’ll dream of being blind.” This project turns that thought around: Will we dream what machines will dream for us? By delegating subconscious processes to finer-grained sensors, we illuminate unseen influences on both robotic and human minds.

The DPU was built as a modular system designed to integrate seamlessly with Desdemona’s robotic framework. The core software is a distributed architecture of services, each controlling sensors or actuators and communicating asynchronously. A main controller orchestrates these modules, scheduling complex pipelines such as sleep stages and dream generation. Most of the system was written in Python, using a custom object-oriented architecture. Sensors and actuators are supported by an Arduino controller, which collects environmental data through a fixed-rate sampling process and relays it to the Python sub-system controller.

The modular nature of the system allows for future expandability. Each module corresponds to a specific sensor or tool, such as temperature, brightness, or sound. Additional modules can be added, including advanced features like a camera module, Lidar, or even a dream-to-image converter. This flexibility ensures that the DPU can adapt to the unique needs of different robots and environments.

undefined - Dream Process Unit: null | Pietro Forino
undefined - Dream Process Unit: null | Pietro Forino

While the DPU was designed specifically for Desdemona, its modular architecture presents a compelling vision for broader applications. Each module can function independently, allowing users to customize the device for different robots, situations, or environments. For instance, in a secure environment, only basic environmental sensors might be needed, while more complex setups could include camera or reactive sentinel modules for advanced interactions. The main controller ensures that all modules operate cohesively, creating a system that is as flexible as it is intelligent.

This modular approach not only enhances the robot’s ability to learn and evolve during downtime but also opens up possibilities for other robots and autonomous systems to benefit from a similar dreaming process.

At its core, the Dream Process Unit is a speculative exercise that blends practical engineering with poetic inquiry. By giving Desdemona the ability to “dream,” we’ve expanded the concept of machine rest into something rich with creative and functional potential. Whether simulating alternate realities or exploring unseen data influences, the DPU turns downtime into a productive and imaginative state. As the project evolves, it promises to redefine how robots interact with and learn from the world, ensuring that even their rest periods are filled with possibility.