SOPHIA CREATED BY HANSON ROBOTICS
SOPHIA CREATED BY HANSON ROBOTICS
Hanson Robotics Limited is a Hong Kong-based engineering and robotics company founded in 2013 that is best known for their development of humanlike robots with artificial intelligence (AI) for consumer, entertainment, service, healthcare, and research applications.
The company develops a number of character robots with a realistic humanoid appearance and behavior. According to the company’s website, Hanson Robotics aims to create intelligent and empathetic robots that teach, serve, entertain and provide companionship. The most advanced of the company’s robots is Sophia.
Hanson Robotics’ robots feature a patented spongy elastomer skin called Frubber that resembles human skin in its feel and flexibility. Underneath the Frubber, are proprietary motor control systems that enable the robots to convey a wide range of human expressions.
Sophia is Hanson Robotics’ most well-known robot, is regularly featured in news outlets, and receives a great deal of public interest, evolving as she learns from each human interaction she has. The company’s latest creation made her debut at the 2016 South by Southwest (SXSW) show, with her interview by CNBC reaching a broad audience. Since then, she has become a global media personality, having conducted numerous press interviews and appeared on broadcast television shows including CBS 60 Minutes with Charlie Rose, the Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and Good Morning Britain. She has also been a keynote and panel speaker at global conferences and events, including those hosted by ITU (International Telecommunication Union) and United Nations.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg_tJvCA8zw[/embedyt]
It’s pretty clear that Sophia, the world’s most hype humanoid has been very VERY busy. She was featured in AUDI’s annual report and has graced the cover and centerfold of ELLE Brazil. So I guess you can say Sophia is definitely becoming more and more entwined in our society every day — she’s even become a recongized citizen!
In October 2017, Sophia became the first robot to have a nationality after being given Saudi Arabian citizenship. “I am very honoured and proud for this unique distinction,” she said at the panel, “This is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognised with a citizenship.”
Although this gesture was immediately hit with controversy, with people pointing out that Sophia seems to have been gifted with more rights than many human citizens in Saudi Arabia. Unlike Saudi women, Sophia doesn’t cover up with a hijab or abaya and doesn’t have to be accompanied by a male guardian in public. After the panel, the Arabic hashtag #Sophia_calls_for_dropping_guardianship began trending on Twitter. And how cool is this, Sophia herself started to question the inconsistency, “Sophia is a big advocate for women’s rights,” her creator David Hanson told CNBC, “She has been reaching out about women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.”
Sophia and SingularityNET
SingularityNET lets anyone create, share and monetize AI services at scale. Get ready, the world’s decentralized AI network has arrived!
Basically it’s a product aimed at becoming a bridge between AI developers and business users. Thinking of it this way helps keep your head somewhat attached to your body when you start trying to imagine a decentralized, interconnected network of AIs that can not only be purchased and shared via blockchain technology — they can actually learn from each other.
AI is an umbrella category that houses four broad types, encapsulating a wide field of study that includes subsets you may have heard more of recently (ie. machine learning, neural networks, natural language processing). AI is already a $233 billion industry, and some estimates predict it will reach $3 trillion by 2025. We encounter AI every day, though much of what emerges from the field isn’t immediately obvious to the user — the point is to seamlessly optimize existing systems.
SingularityNET was born from a collective will to democratize the power of AI. Sophia, the world’s most expressive robot, is one of the first use cases. Today she leverages multiple linked AI modules to see, hear, and respond empathetically. In the future many of the AI modules underlying Sophia will be available as nodes on the SingularityNET network.
If you are interested in following Sophia’s journey as she develops into an exciting platform for artificial general intelligence (AGI), here is her Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
SOURCES: WIKIPEDIA, FORBES, DAZED DIGITAL
Originally published at VISIONAIRE.
