Secondly, we will need to see the development of an AI software similar in capacity to that seen in the human brain. For us to see true intelligent robots, we will need to see two things - firstly, the increased capabilities of the actual hardware storing this intelligence, i.e, the robots themselves. Today, it's clear that no matter how advanced robotics have become, they have similar issues to actual AI technology - scripted responses to known variables. Indeed, the robot is the first to have gained citizenship in Saudi Arabia in an attempt to promote the country as a hub for artificial intelligence development. The processor of Sophia, in practice, combined facial and speech recognition to develop lifelike, albeit scripted, responses. The Sophia robot is designed with cameras in the eyes, and a 3D sensor in the chest which helps the entity to 'see'. According to Hanson, the creator of Sophia, "some of what she says is actually written by writers." So, what does this mean for businesses?įor one Japanese news-station at the very least, it's resulted in Erica, another AI-based robot, being prepared to take on the role of news anchor - making her debut in April. The Hanson Robotics team has now progressed to the second round of the Watson AI XPrize, designed to accelerate AI adoption technologies, although critics, most notably Facebook's Chief AI Scientist, have accused the company of promoting a "Wizard-of-Oz AI", comparing its abilities to a particularly high-tech puppet. Speaking of the creation of Sophia, the realistic robot that has garnered worldwide attention, David Hanson, founder of Hanson Robotics, confirmed: "we are building the AI architecture for genuine love." there's no doubt that science fiction writers have played a role in the rise of actual robotics - acting as the dreamers behind the technology that others have created. and not just what those phone salesmen at MWC are selling.įrom iRobot and Futurama, to Westworld, The Jetsons, and Kryten in Red Dward. One need only look at the glut of popular media available to show just how taken the human psyche is with the idea of humanoid robots - true, verifiable artificial intelligence. Just recently (relatively speaking at least) we saw the first actual robot come into play - in 1954 with the Unimate robot - which was then sold to General Motors to lift and stack hot metal from a die casting machine. Since Jules Verne's "The Steam House" in 1880, where a group of British colonialists travelled to India in a house pulled by a mechanical elephant powered by steam, the world has been fascinated by robots.