Everyone has always had a scare imagining robots taking over our world someday. It's safe to say that that time has begun.
Sophia, a Hanson Robotics humanoid robot has not only been developed but also been given citizenship by Saudi Arabia. It is first time in the history, that a robot has been given a citizenship of country. Sophia was given this new status during the Future Investment Initiative 2017 conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
With the use of artificial intelligence, Sophia is able to imitate human gestures and facial expressions, along with answering questions and conversing with interviewers around the world. This intelligence software is designed by Singularity Net that guarantees Sophia will only get smarter over time.
The company that developed Sophia itself says that "Sophia is an evolving genius machine". Although the physical appearance (the back of her plastic head) may not seem to imitate the human head realistically, the machinery itself is intriguing. When we have glance of her face, it looks like Famous British Actress Audrey Hepburn. Aside from intelligence and other mental capabilities, Sophia is also designed to mimic emotions such as love, jealously, anger and empathy, closely relating her to an actual human species.
Furthermore, Sophia has been designed to become a suitable companion for the elderly at nursing homes, putting a robot like her to good use. It's predictable that in the coming time, she will be able to interact fully with humans, enhancing her social skills. Sophia being the first robot to become so technologically advanced, scientists wouldn’t take much time to develop more such robots which will be carrying characteristics like humans. Sophia has given multiple interviews and has been on numerous shows on social media and television, making her a star that intrigues everybody.
A few months back Sophia attended a meeting on artificial intelligence at the United Nations. In the meeting, Sophia said that AI can help to distribute the resources like Food and Energy to people in the world.
Considering the effort put into developing a robot-like Sophia, making her one of a kind, clearly indicates that she will never be up for sale. It's interesting to note that once before, Sophia claimed that she wanted to destroy the human race, although now she states she wants to live peacefully amongst humans. Hopefully this attitude will remain even after the development of her fellow robots. It's best to pray that the increasing population of robots does not outnumber humans!