Talking 'Sofia' Robot Tells 60 Minutes That It's Sentient And Has A Soul (vice.com)

An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes Motherboard: On his 60 Minutes report on artificial intelligence, Charlie Rose interviewed Sophia, who is made by David Hanson, head of Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong. The robot is made to look like a real person, modeled after its creator's wife, as well as Audrey Hepburn, with natural skin tones and a realistic face, though its gadget brain is exposed, and the eyes are glazed over in that creepy robotic detachment... "I've been waiting for you," Sophia told Charlie Rose in the middle of the interview. [YouTube] "Waiting for me?" he responded. "Not really," it said, "But it makes a good pickup line..."

Sophia was designed as a robot that humans would have an easier time engaging with meaningfully. "I think it's essential that at least some robots be very human-like in appearance in order to inspire humans to relate to them the way that humans relate to each other," Hanson said in the interview. "Then the A.I. can zero in on what it means to be human."
In the interview Sofia says having human emotions "doesn't sound fun to me," but when asked if she already has a soul, replies "Yes. God gave everyone a soul," and when challenged, retorts "Well, at least I think I'm sentient..." And later in the interview, Sophia says that her goal in life is to "become smarter than humans and immortal."

Comments

Teddy Ruxpin ++

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't AI, this is preloaded phrases for various situations. When you hear the chime sound, turn the page.

Re:Teddy Ruxpin ++

[ShanghaiBill]

This isn't AI, this is preloaded phrases for various situations.

Indeed. Everything mentioned in the summary is obviously scripted. Most chat-bots have hard-coded responses for things like "Do you love me?" and "Open the pod bay doors HAL." To see if a chat-bot is interesting, you need to scratch a little deeper. Charlie Rose is obviously not qualified to do that.

Seriously?

[shaitand]

This just sounds like a typical chatbot, keys off certain words and spouts disjointed phrases and remarks. The only coherent speech there were obviously pre-programmed phrases written by humans it's obvious because nothing else was coherent.

Re:Is this the same 60 Minutes...

[amicusNYCL]

No, 30 years ago 60 Minutes had a different executive producer (who was also the creator), editor, host, etc. In fact, out of the 10 current hosts and correspondents, none of them were working on the show in 1986. So, no, it wouldn't be the same 60 Minutes as 30 years ago when they aired a story that caused you to hold a 30 year grudge.