SOPHIA THE HUMANOID

Sophia is a social humanoid robot developed in Hong Kong and activated on April 19, 2015. She is able to display more than 62 facial expressions and can even make jokes. ‘She’ has attracted media attention from all around the globe and has participated in many high-profile interviews. Her sophisticated replies to gripping questions have caused doubt however, as they appear to be potentially scripted. In October 2017, Sophia became a Saudi Arabian citizen, the first AI to receive citizenship of any country.

Once being quoted saying ‘I will destroy humans’ I think it’s safe to say I’m slightly scared that technology is going too far. It takes one black mirror episode to convince just about anyone how the rapid rise of technology could have serious consequences on the control actual humans have over the world. Although I commend the hard work and effort taken to produce anything like Sophia, I draw the line at any technology that attempts to understand and replicate human emotion.

Social media is an amazing tool and helps in so many ways but I fear that it has also turned our generation into one that mindlessly scrolls rather than going out and having motivation to explore which is leaving holes in society that can be filled by humanoids; I understand things such as Amazon’s ‘Alexa’ as it aids humanity rather than trying to replace it. I think Sophia is a prime example of technology going too far as it almost epitomises Einstein’s worry of fearing the day ‘that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.’

Robots are technically more efficient than us but we can’t let technological advances overtake human advances.