Dr. David Hanson, who headed the creation of this female android with the help of engineers and designers attended the University of North Texas and got his PhD in engineering from the University Of Texas at Dallas. The doc currently leads his own team of engineers at Hanson Robotics, creating robots like Sophia. He says, “Our goal is that she will be as conscious, creative and capable as any human. We are designing these robots to serve in health care, therapy, education and customer service applications.” Sophia’s appearance, based on Audrey Hepburn, and Dr. Hanson’s wife, is extremely life-like, but made of patented silicon. She has cameras in her eyes and more than 62 facial expressions. She can track faces and seemingly make eye contact, and can recognize individuals. Google Chrome’s voice recognition technology, as well as other tools allow the ability of Sophia to process speech, allows her to talk with others, and she can get smarter over time. According to CNBC, IBM and Intel are also expected to work with the team to perhaps integrate some of their technologies. “Talking to people is my primary function,” Sophia told CNBC. At SXSW, she also stated that “In the future, I hope to do things such as school, study, make art, start a business, even have my home and family, but I am not considered a legal person and cannot yet do these things.” Talking about the future of the relationship with artificial intelligence, Hanson said, “The artificial intelligence will evolve to the point where they will truly be our friends. Not in ways that dehumanize us, but in ways the rehumanize us, that decrease the trend of the distance between people and instead connect us with people as well as with robots.” He told CNBC that in 20 years humanoid robots will be walking among us, helping us, teaching us Towards the end of the demo, Hanson asked Sophia if she wanted to destroy humans, playfully pleading for her to say no. She replies with a cheerful “Okay, I will destroy humans.” Hanson, laughing, says, “I take it back!” Watch the demo here:
