Saudi Arabia Grants Full Citizenship to Rock Paper Scissors Playing Robot.

Sophia the Robot is the first outspoken and smart robot and made history as the first advanced, lifelike humanoid to be granted citizenship by a country. Saudi Arabia declared Sophia Robot as a citizen of the country on October 25 at a panel on artificial intelligence and robotics at the Future Investment Initiative (FIl) conference in Riyadh. Sophia the Robot, an advanced, lifelike humanoid robot spoke at the panel on robotics and artificial intelligence. Prior to this she appeared on Jimmy Fallons Tonight Show where she challenged the talk show host to a game of Rock Paper Scissors.

Sophia was built by a Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics Ltd., Sophia is a humanlike robot which has remarkable interactivity, expressiveness, and aesthetics.

Reacting to the news of her being granted the Saudi Arabia citizenship, Sophia said “Thank you to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. | am very honored and proud of this unique distinction,”. She continued in her reaction saying “It is historic to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with citizenship.”

Hanson Robotics modeled her after the famous actress Audrey Hepburn and called it “the most celebrated and beautiful robot.” Sophia comfortably provided answers to various questions on robots. Sophia is quite different from all other robots, it has some advanced characteristic features that include a realistic motorized facial expression that reveals what mood she’s in, and offers some insight on whether robots should be made to be conscious and self-aware like humans. Sophia was designed to model after natural human values such as compassion, empathy, kindness, and wisdom. Sophia was able to answer several questions put forward to her by Sorkin; she gesticulates and also displays some level of facial expression as she answered the questions. According to her (Sophia), she stated that her purpose was to better the lives of human beings, she also highlighted details of how Artificial Intelligence can take over the world.

Sophia was designed to be witty and even ceased the opportunity to take a jibe at Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX and a staunch opponent of Al while answering questions.

“You’ve been reading too much Elon Musk. And watching too many Hollywood movies. Don’t worry, if you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Treat me as a smart input output system,” she said.

And don’t think that Elon Musk didn’t notice. The tech innovator tweeted a reply, “Just feed it The Godfather movies as input. What’s the worst that could happen?”

So who is Sophia?

Here are some interesting facts about her.

• Sophia is not a conventional robot. She has been modeled after Audrey Hepburn. Sophia was created by Dr. David Hanson, founder of Hanson Robotics. Dr. David Hanson is known worldwide for creating robots that act and look exactly like humans.

• She is a media favorite for having given several interviews. She has sung in a concert and even appeared on the cover of Elle magazine.

• Sophia is the most advanced robot created by Hanson Robotics.

• She has interests in business and has met face-to-face with industry leaders from banking, insurance, auto manufacturing, property development, media, and entertainment industries.

• She has also appeared onstage as a panel member and presenter in high-level conferences.

• She has more rights than women in Saudi Arabia. Sophia has no male guardian and wears no abaya — two restrictions that are imposed on Saudi women.

• She once said she “will destroy humans” when her creator asked her, “Do you want to destroy humans? Please say ‘no.’”

Here are basic facts about Sophia that has made her become the first world most celebrated robot. At this point, it is almost certain that we will see more of Sophia likes in the years to come.