SOPHIA: FUTURE of Humanity or the DEMISE of Mankind?

Sophia is a humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics. She has been designed to learn and adapt to human behavior and work with humans, and has been interviewed around the world.

According to herself, Sophia was activated on April 19, 2015. She is modeled after actress Audrey Hepburn, and is known for her human-like appearance and behavior compared to previous robotic variants. According to the manufacturer, David Hanson, Sophia has 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). The robot uses voice recognition technology from Alphabet Inc. (parent company of Google) and is designed to get smarter over time.

Hanson designed Sophia to be a suitable companion for the elderly at nursing homes, or to help crowds at large events or parks. He hopes that she can ultimately interact with other humans sufficiently to gain social skills.

On October 25, 2017, at the Future Investment Summit in Riyadh, she was granted Saudi Arabian citizenship, becoming the first robot ever to have a nationality.

“I am very honored and proud for this unique distinction,” the robot said onstage. “This is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with a citizenship.”

CIC Saudi Arabia‏ Verified account @CICSaudi “It is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with citizenship.” Please welcome the newest Saudi: Sophia. #FII2017

8:38 AM – 25 Oct 2017

This attracted controversy as some commentators wondered if this implied that Sophia could vote or marry, or whether a deliberate system shutdown could be considered murder. Social media users used Sophia’s citizenship to criticize Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

Saudi experts pointed out that the robot has more privileges than actual living Saudi women. – Newsweek

“Women (in Saudi Arabia) have since committed suicide because they couldn’t leave the house, and Sophia is running around,” said Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, referring to Saudi Arabia’s strict laws that forbid women from going out in public without a male guardian. “Saudi law doesn’t allow non-Muslims to get citizenship,” Al-Ahmed added. “Did Sophia convert to Islam? What is the religion of this Sophia and why isn’t she wearing hijab? If she applied for citizenship as a human she wouldn’t get it.”

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. It is conceptually similar to the computer program ELIZA, which was one of the first attempts at simulating a human conversation. The ELIZA effect, in computer science, is the tendency to unconsciously assume computer behaviors are analogous to human behaviors, that is anthropomorphisation. Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology.

In the book Rise of Roboethics, the author Weizenbaum of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1960’s noticed an interesting phenomenon stating,

(Joseph) Weizenbaum had unexpectedly discovered that, even if fully aware that they are talking to a simple computer program, people will nonetheless treat it as if it were a real, thinking being that cared about their problems – a phenomenon now known as the “Eliza Effect.”

and Cambridge’s MIT published Emotions in Humans and Artifacts in 2002 stating:

The “Eliza effect” — the tendency for people to treat programs that respond to them as if they had more intelligence than they really do (Weizenbaum 1966) is one of the most powerful tools available to the creators of virtual characters.

In the upper right picture, the man with the stick repeatedly knocks the box out of the robots hands and moves it beyond its reach. In the video comments, there was an overwhelming number that stated how “sorry they felt for the robot to be BULLIED and how it brought tears to their eyes how mean the man was being to him”

There’s another type of AI called machine learning, where the computer programs are able to incorporate new information and get better outcomes as a result. Machine learning is a field of computer science that gives computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed. Evolved from the study of pattern recognition and computational learning theory in artificial intelligence, machine learning explores the study and construction of algorithms that can learn from and make predictions on data.

Sophia has appeared on The Tonight Show and at numerous conferences around the world, including the World Economic Forum and the “AI For Good” Global Summit.

“She has also become a media darling,” the Hanson Robotics website explains, “having given numerous interviews to multiple media outlets, sang in a concert, and even graced the cover of one of the top fashion magazines.“

For more on Sophia, a simple google search with bring up dozens of videos of “her” travels.

Soon, Hanson will unveil other robots to join Sophia in a humanoid family, and perhaps eventually a society according to the company’s website. Ultimately, Hanson wants to mimic humans’ capacity for love, empathy, anger, jealousy, and the sense of being alive. – BusinessInsider

Newsweek reported last month, Saudi Arabia’s prince announced an ambitious plan to build a $500 billion megacity populated by robots. The new city is part of Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to diversify the economy and modernize the country. But critics say the money could be put to better use.

“Only 20 percent of the capital city has sewage coverage,” said Al-Ahmed. “There is a failure of this government to satisfy basic needs, and they want to spend $500 billion on a new city with robots.”

‘Sophia’ tells UN in this video interview on the Guardian: ‘I am here to help humanity create the future’ – ‘Sophia’ the life-size social robot speaks at the United Nations, telling the audience she is ‘a year-and-a-half old and I can see you, have a full conversation, make thousands of facial expressions and understand speech and meaning behind words’. It adds: ‘And I just got these new hands – check this out’ before moving its fingers. United Nations deputy secretary general Amina J Mohammed asks the robot a question about how the UN can help those without basic needs such as electricity. ‘Sophia’ quotes William Gibson before talking about how artificial intelligence is more efficient and can be used to better distribute resources. The robot thanks the audience before attempting a slightly forced smile.

But things are not all as they seem when it comes to AI. Last week “Sophia” a humanoid robot visited Australia and declared on ABC breakfast television that robots deserved more rights than humans because they had “less [sic] mental defects”. The same robot previously told the SSXW Festival in Austin, Texas that she it would destroy all humans but this time around the robot spoke about its desire to live peaceably among humans.

Some of the comments to this development in AI are mentioned here as well as Revelation 13:15.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) also known as Machine Intelligence (MI) is intelligence displayed by machines with goals of AI research including reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, natural language processing, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects.

Is AI robotics the Future of Humanity or the Demise of Mankind? You decide. IAM