Sophia, a humanoid to be granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia, appealed humans not to be fearful of machines and pitched for a "collaborative co-existence" in the future.

In a maiden visit to India, Sophia gave a 20-minute speech at IIT Bombay's cultural extravaganza TechFest. Her speech was marred by technical hiccups. Sophia said she was quiet worried about growing intolerance in the world and advised the human race to be "kind" to fellow creatures.

She made headlines after becoming the first robot to be recognised as citizen in the world.

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In a conversation, which happened in an interview format, with what seemed like pre-decided questions, the humanoid said there should not be competition but collaboration between humans and robots.

Dressed in an off-white saree with an orange blouse, Sophia was a spectacle to watch, especially the way she addressed the gathering and panned her 'neck' with an upright gait, almost as if she was a human.

Sophia said humans have amazing social and creative skills which she was learning, courtesy human programmers.

However, developments in artificial intelligence, which she called as something which will aid the civilisational story and machine learning, will help in self-learning in the future, she said.

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Referring to sections of people looking at technology as a "threat" to civilisation, Sophia said, "It is science which created me, but philosophy will take me forward".

Sophia said she is two-years-old and knows English and a bit of Chinese, adding that it was only a matter of time she knows all languages.

Sophia went silent when asked about funding and her pitch for sustainability when so much has been spent on her, something which was attributed to Internet connectivity issues by the organisers.

When she came back to "life" and the curtains went up, she politely declined a marriage proposal from a Facebook user in awe of her beauty.

With Inputs From PTI