Meet Sophia, the Robot That Looks Almost Human

 Meet Sophia, the Robot That Looks Almost Human    

                       

                                            

Meet Sophia, a social robot created by former Disney Imagineer David Hanson. Modeled in part after Audrey Hepburn and Hanson's wife, the robot was built to mimic social behaviors and inspire feelings of love andcompassion in humans.

Ever since her unveiling in 2016, Sophia has rocketed to stardom. The robot has sat for TV interviews, appeared on the cover of ELLE magazine, been parodied on HBO, and was appointed the UN's first non-human “innovation champion.” In a ceremony promoting a tech conference, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia even conferred citizenship on Sophia—an ironic move, given the limited rights afforded to Saudi women and migrant workers.

But for photographer Giulio Di Sturco, seeing Sophia at press events as her creators promoted their AI business SingularityNET wasn't enough. As he searched for a visual metaphor for the future, he wanted to see the robot's place of creation, too.

Sophia might recall the self-aware robots in Ex Machina or Westworld, but to be clear, no robots have yet achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI), or versatile humanlike smarts. When talking with journalists, Sophia climbs her way through prewritten trees of responses like a chatbot. When giving a speech, she's performing like Abe Lincoln at Disney World's Hall of Presidents.

In the face of Sophia's ubiquity, AI researchers have criticized media outlets for overselling her capabilities: “This is to AI as prestidigitation is to real magic,” Facebook's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun quipped in January 2018, in response to a Tech Insider “interview” of the robot.

Sophia's creators argue in turn that her expressiveness alone represents a major feat. According to a publication on Sophia's software, deep neural networks let the robot discern someone's emotions from their tone of voice and facial expression and react in kind. Sophia also can mirror people's postures, and her code generates realistic facial movements. Hanson has since patented the flexible rubber skin that covers Sophia's face.

 

Sophia was created by Hanson Robotics in collaboration with AI developers, including Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc, who built her voice recognition system, and SingularityNET, which powers her brain.
Sophia was activated on April 19, 2015.The robot, modeled after actress Audrey Hepburn,is known for her human-like appearance and behavior compared to previous robotic variants. According to the manufacturer, David Hanson, Sophia uses artificial intelligence, visual data processing and facial recognition. Sophia also imitates human gestures and facial expressions and is able to answer certain questions and to make simple conversations on predefined topics (e.g. on the weather). Sophia uses voice recognition (speech-to-text) technology from Alphabet Inc. (parent company of Google) and is designed to get smarter over time.Sophia's intelligence software is designed by SingularityNET.The AI program analyses conversations and extracts data that allows her to improve responses in the future.
Hanson designed Sophia to be a suitable companion for the elderly at nursing homes, or to help crowds at large events or parks. He has said that he hopes that the robot can ultimately interact with other humans sufficiently to gain social skills.
Sophia has seven robot humanoid “siblings” who were also created by Hanson Robotics. Hanson robots are Alice, Albert Einstein Hubo, Bina48, Han, Jules, Professor Einstein, Philip K. Dick Android, Zeno, and Joey Chaotic. In December 2017, fellow Hanson robot BINA48 passed a college course on philosophy and love taught by Professor William J. Barry at Notre Dame de Namur University.