Vol.:(0123456789) SN Applied Sciences (2021) 3:655 | https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-021-04653-x Review Paper “Does cinema form the future of robotics?”: a survey on fctional robots in sci‑f movies Ehsan Safari 1  · Seyed Ramezan Hosseini 1  · Alireza Taheri 1  · Ali Meghdari 1 Received: 23 September 2020 / Accepted: 11 May 2021 © The Author(s) 2021 OPEN Abstract Robotics and Artifcial Intelligence (AI) have always been among the most popular topics in science fction (sci-f) movies. This paper endeavors to review popular movies containing Fictional Robots (FR) to extract the most common charac- teristics and interesting design ideas of robots portrayed in science fction. To this end, 134 sci-f flms, including 108 unique FRs, were investigated regarding the robots’ diferent design aspects (e.g., appearance design, interactive design and artifcial intelligence, and ethical and social design). Also, in each section of this paper, some characteristics of FRs are compared with real social robots. Since some researches point to the signifcant role of the cinema in forming the community’s expectations, it is very important to consider these characteristics and diferences in choosing the future pathway of robotics. As some examples of fndings, we have found that unlike the non-metallic skins/covers of real social robots, most FRs are still covered by highly detailed metal components. Moreover, the FR ability of interactions are generally (more than 90%) shown to be similar or even more advanced than normal Human–Human interactions, and this milestone was achieved by ignoring the AI challenges of real HRI. On the other hand, the ethical aspects of movies do inspire us to consider the potential ethical aspects of real robot design. All in all, according to popularity of movies, studying FR could be a step toward more appropriate development of robotics and AI entities to be accepted by general users in the real world. * Alireza Taheri, artaheri@sharif.edu | 1 Social and Cognitive Robotics Lab., Center of Excellence in Design, Robotics, and Automation (CEDRA), Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. Highlights: • We reviewed 134 sci-f movies containing 108 unique fctional robots regarding diferent design aspects. • Fictional Robot (FR) is an artifcial entity acting as a result of a fctional technology and playing a role in a movie. • Investigating fctional robots can shed light on the development of real robotics and AI entities. Keywords Fictional robots · Science fction movies · Social robot · Robot design · Artifcial intelligence (AI) · Robot ethics 1 Introduction After watching only a few science fction (sci-f) classics, one quickly realizes that robotics and artifcial intelligence (AI) have always been a compelling topic in sci-f movies. As a manifestation of advanced technology, robots play an important role in depicting the future of humans in sci-f movies. In fctional worlds, Fictional Robots (FR) are usually ideal candidates for unpleasant or dangerous jobs (i.e., servants, soldiers, etc.) due to their inexhaustibility,