Hanson Robotics Sophia Gets Close to the Humanoid Robot We Expect from Sci Fi

Robots  

David Hanson recently unveiled his newest female android, "Sophia." The robot may be put to work in fields ranging from medical treatment and therapy, to marketing, advertising and education. Hanson also expects Sophia to be the first sentient robot which can achieve human-like consciousness.

Hanson Robotics CEO, David Hanson recently demonstrated a new robot with a wealth of facial expressions called "Sofia" at a conference in Beijing. Hanson also expects Sophia to be the first sentient robot which can achieve human-like consciousness.

"Our goal is to create machines that are truly capable of understanding what people are, who we are and what we care about," states Hanson.

"Sophia is a prototype of our first really mass-produced product line," claims Hanson, who moved his operations from the US to China to take advantage of the country's manufacturing capability.

Hanson said that his robots are designed to make robots become our friends. 

"If we can enact the human genius of artists, utilize the robotics technology and transform it into people’s daily life, then people will care about it even more."

Sophia can almost simulate all 48 muscles and all facial expression, actions in face-to-face interactions between different people. Sofia's skin made from Hanson's material Frubber. The face even has 4-40 nanometers (billionths of a meter) size pores, almost exactly the same as found on our own faces.

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The body of Sophia was made by a Tokyo-based company. Hanson developed the face. "If we can enact the human genius of artists, utilize the robotics technology and transform it into people’s daily life, then people will care about it even more," claims Hanson.

"It’s not just AI, not just robotics technology, it’s crafting into this cultural object, and combined with market dynamics, and then you have this kind of natural selection that’s grooming the technology, the artistry and the technology. Underlying AI naturally select it from market forces to become more compassionate, friendlier and more valuable to us," he states.

Hanson states that we are now experiencing a golden age in artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence has begun to understand grammar, funny little grammar structure. "We have some really good natural language scientists (AR scientists) on our team who have addressed to these problems and the result surprised me," he says.

"Some of the results have been really good. Beyond what we’ve done on our team, because you know we are only a few dozen people. You have projects in the world that have shown stunning results lately."

SOURCE  Titanium Media

By 33rd Square

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