George Zarkadakis

What is a human?

A human is a species of primates characterized by advanced cognitive abilities and a capacity for abstract reasoning.

They have the unique ability of self-awareness, allowing them to understand their own thoughts, emotions and experiences.

Humans are capable of both great kindness and compassion, as well as violence and aggression.

Wonder is the feeling of the philosopher.

And philosophy begins in wonder.

I lived in Athens then, I was like five, six years old, and it was summertime.

And in Greece, they still do it, they have like open-air cinemas, right?

Where in the summer you go into an open-air cinema, there's no roof, you know, there's a screen in front of you, you sit there, you make a lot of noise.

It's great.

And my mother took me to watch a film that, you know, the people who had the cinema decided to show.

It was an old film, it was called Forbidden Planet.

It was all about, you know, a spaceship landing on another planet and finding a sort of this crazy scientist who had a robot.

And that was the first time I actually saw a robot in my life.

I never imagined there would be a thing.

Ever since that moment, I was so fascinated with the idea that we can develop artifacts, artificial things that can think, that can act, that can behave like us humans.

It was 1969 when George watched in wonder as Robbie the Robot rolled across the big screen, something that may have seemed like a far-off reality for a kid growing up in the 60s.

But then again, humans had just witnessed man landing on the moon.

Tranquility base here.

The Eagle has landed.