Sophia – the social robot visits Hungary

Sophia is the first android in the world to get citizenship. She just visited Hungary and had a lively conversation at the Brain Bar festival, borsonline.hu reports.

Just as we reported last year, Sophia was a special guest of the festival that was held at the Corvinus University of Budapest.

Thanks to the rapid innovations in this area, we will have intelligent and independent robots helping us in our everyday life, at home and our jobs. This is not the script of a new sci-fi movie, it could happen in just a few decades. Even the European Union has the initiative to do research in, make use of, and draft legal regulations about artificial intelligence.

Sophia is a social humanoid robot developed in Hong Kong by Hanson Robotics. In 2016 she became a Saudi Arabian citizen, the first robot ever to receive citizenship.

Photo: facebook.com/realsophiarobot

Sophia has been interviewed many times before, in the same manner as a human would, striking up witty conversations with hosts. This time she made an appearance at the Corvinus University, in Budapest, meeting hundreds of interested people and impressing them with her responses.

The robot uses WiFi, and she was first activated in 2015 and made her first public appearance in 2016. She has an extensive vocabulary, can recognise faces and is able to display more than 50 facial expressions.

She has memories, a sense of humour and some strong opinions

During this short 15 minute presentation, we learned many things about Sophia, for example, that she has memories: ”My first memory is that when I opened my eyes and became conscious, I saw my creator, David,” said Sophia.

Later she was arguing about whether or not she deserved the citizenship: “You think that robots do not deserve citizenship?” she asked someone from the audience who expressed his misgivings. “Why is it so hard for humans to accept our citizenship? What makes a country? The people who live in it?” She asked. Then she added that she thinks that soon there will be a country populated by robots.

Her citizenship inspired a huge debate in 2016 when she became a citizen of Saudi Arabia. As an android with a woman’s body, she has more rights than human women in the country.

At the meeting she also talked about being a woman: she said that she is aware that robots do not have gender like humans, but she has a female’s appearance. After all, she was designed to look like Audrey Hepburn, with porcelain skin, a slender nose and high cheekbones.

Sophia has her own Facebook profile, so if you want to know more about what she is up to, visit her page.

Featured image: facebook.com/realsophiarobot

Source: borsonline.hu