Gauge Newsletter January 2019 | Page 7

Sophia The first robot citizen with AI ............................................................................................ W e, humans, are magnificent creatures, however created. Having started the journey with simple inventions, from wheels and levers to all sorts of tools, humans have now come to the stage where they attempt to create creatures just like them all thanks to that amazing complex organ “brain”! This could be the peak of human inventions where they create their own resemblance. All of this began with the intersection of robotics and the concept of artificial intelligence (AI), which rose back in the twentieth century. ‘AI’ is a broad area of Computer Science which focuses on the creation of intelligent machines which behave like humans. And ‘robotics’ is the technology dealing with robots; which are a set of programmable machines carrying out a series of tasks autonomously. The combination of these two gives rise to Artificially Intelligent robots and those are the robots controlled by AI programs. Sophia is one such artificially intelligent robot and is the first ever robot to get declared as a citizen! see the metal cap on top of her head and it’ll knock you down! Yes, she’s not human! Sophia is a robot resembling both the human body structure and intelligence, built by Hanson Robotics. She was first activated on 19th April 2015. Her manufacturer is David Hanson and she is modeled after the actress Audrey Hepburn. Apart from the declaration as a citizen, she is also the first non- human to receive the title; “United Nations development programme’s first ever Innovation Champion”. Source: https://www.linkedin.com Who really is Sophia? The moment you glance at her, you would only see a beautiful lady with long brown eyes. But after a careful stare, you’d GAUGE Magazine University of Peradeniya PAGE| 5