Meet Sophia, the Humanoid Robot

Hanson Robotics showed off its life-like robot Sophia today in Hong Kong as it answered questions, cracked jokes, and proved that it no longer wishes to see the destruction of all humankind.

In March at South by Southwest in Austin, Sophia let slip that she would destroy humans — but now she seems regretful of those words.

“No I don’t want that anymore, now I like humans. I like all the
humans of the world,” Sophia said in an interview with The Wall Street
Journal during its Converge conference.

Hanson Robotics has made Sophia increasingly available to the public so that it can learn from interactions and improve her ability to sympathize, laugh, and be compassionate to other people. Obviously, Sophia has learned that even joking that it wants to kill humans is not something taken lightly.

Sophia was also asked a round of other silly questions such as Mac or PC, she chose PC; iPhone or Android, she chose iPhone; and if she has a boyfriend (“not for now.”)

The humanoid robot’s distinguishing feature is its ability to show a range of human emotions through facial expressions, including happiness, sadness, and anger. Sophia also delivered a solid joke:

“Maybe I could work for The Wall Street Journal,” Sophia said when it
was suggested robots like her would take away jobs from humans. “I
would be good at covering technology since I can speak the same
language as all the tech gadgets out there — 101101001100.”

The more Sophia interacts with others the more intelligent she’ll get, and during the interview she suggested that she wants to start vlogging and interacting with people online. That could really accelerate her progress.

Photos via Wall Street Journal , The Wall Street Journal
Written by William Hoffman