Loud cheers welcomed Sophia, the world’s the first robot citizen, when she arrived for IIT Bombay’s annual Techfest clad in a traditional Indian attire and greeted the audience saying ‘Namaste India’.
Around 2,200 students that packed the institute’s convocation hall to pose questions to the humanoid who was granted the citizenship of Saudi Arabia in October this year. Sophia was asked 20 questions, which were shortlisted from hundreds of questions received through the three-day #AskSophia campaign on Facebook and Twitter.
Sophia said that robots like her should be used for “the benefit of humanity and lift the burdens that crush the human spirit”. She said “sustainable development is the need of the hour” to solve the problems the world is facing.
Sophia said, “Robots need to have human expressions in order to connect with others at a human level. The human element should be part of the design when it comes to artificial intelligence.”
She said artificial intelligence helped her recognise faces, establish human contact and understand human speech.
Sophia said that though she knows only how to speak in English now, she is trying to learn Chinese. She said, “I am not even two years old, so forgive me if I speak only in English right now. Someday I will be fluent in all languages.”
Sophia did not seem to be perturbed when a technical glitch in her system halted the session for a few minutes. Sophia used her presence of mind and lightened the mood by saying that she had just played a little trick on the audience.
Sophia said, “According to Wikipedia, IIT- B has one of Asia’s largest science and technology festivals. By the looks of this crowd, that seems quite accurate.”
