“Empire for technology has ability to do great harm” Sophia the Robot warns Armenia forum

“Empire for technology has ability to do great harm” Sophia the Robot warns Armenia forum
"I know that the unknown can be scary," Sophia the Robot told forum participants. / ITU Pictures.
By bne IntelliNews October 12, 2018

Sophia the Robot, a social humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics, addressed the Economic Forum in Yerevan, Armenia held on the sidelines of the 17th Summit of La Francophonie, Public Radio of Armenia reported.

The robot spoke of hoping to see a world where Artificial Intelligence and humans can live together.

“I know that the unknown can be scary. Technology seems to be changing faster than we can get used to it,” Sophia, reportedly said in an address, adding that “along with changing the world by presenting new technologies, we must take care to preserve human dignity and quality of life”.

Sophia, which can do more than 50 facial expressions, greeted the participants of the forum in English, French and Armenian and pledged to learn French “as it is a very beautiful language, the language of Voltaire and Aznavour”.

The robot said learning French would be top of her list of things to do and promised to converse in French next time after she gets a software upgrade.

As UNDP’s Innovation Champion, Sophia said “the development of technology takes humanity into new frontiers of development”. However, she added that “we have to temper our excitement a bit. An empire for technology also has an ability to do a great harm, even unintentionally”.

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