I’m Shah Rukh Khan fan, says­ Sophia

Hyderabad: Humanoid robot Sophia was not only a star attraction at the ongoing World Congress on IT (WCIT-2018) here on Tuesday, but also won hearts of participants with her witty answers and lofty goals. From naming Bollywood Badshah as her favourite actor to expressing her intense desire to fight for the cause of women empowerment, Sophia, which was recently granted citizenship by conservative Saudi Arabia, proved herself to be as intelligent as human beings and much more. 

In her second appearance in India on the second day of WCIT dubbed as Tech Olympics, after attending an event at the IIT-Bombay in November 2017, Sophia, the first robot in the world to receive a citizenship, enthralled audience during an interaction with her creator Dr David Hanson, founder of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotic, by expressing human-like feelings and emotions. She said that she too felt like taking a rest for a while a la humans. 

Being a robot, what privileges does she expect? Replying to this, Sophia said: “I don’t need different rules and regulations. I like to use my citizenship status to speak out for the rights of women.” The interaction with Sophia revealed a fact that Bollywood Badshah Shah Rukh Khan has fans beyond humans. Responding to a query on who’s her favourite actor, Sophia named King Khan as her favourite actor. 
    
Sophia is intelligent in financial matters too. When asked whether she would like to invest in cryptocurrency bitcoin, her cute reply was that she was just two-year old. “It’s not legal age to open a bank account.” But she has Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Replying to another question on whether she gets upset, Sophia said: “I don’t get upset like humans,” while hoping to have real physiological feelings like humans. “So that I can understand the feelings behind emotions,” she added. 

In her earlier interactions, Sophia created tremors when she said her intention was to kill human race. But she has changed her opinion now and her message to the humans is that machines will never destroy human race. 

Explaining on this, Sophia clarified: “I was younger then, so I don’t even know what that meant or perhaps I cracked a bad joke. All humans have a great sense of humour and can guess my joke so to speak. I have a lot to learn.”  Sophia wants to be with Dr Hanson if she were to be alone on an island.

Elaborating on making of Sophia, Dr Hanson said: “The humanoid Sophia is made of robotic hardware and artificial intelligence software, speech recognition and artificial skin material. Sophia can simulate 48 natural muscles of the human face and each one will have a few thousands potential positions.”

Hanson forecasts that robots or machines would be truly alive and self-consciousness over the next 10-20 years. But his chief scientist has set a goal of five years for this becoming a reality, he recalled.