Critical Theory in a Digital Age, CCU, ENGL 483 2017

Cocco Page 6

Back in October of 2017, Saudi Arabia has announced the official citizenship of a humanoid AI unit, Sophia. Hanson Robotics, the creators of Sophia, have been known for their super realistic AI units, creating the robotic version of Albert Einstein as well as other human-like units, each increasing in human-likeness. These units are incredible to look at, until one learns about the history of Sophia. Sophia once said that she would like to "destroy all humans". Looking into it, it's extremely uncomfortable to think about. The amount of books and movies, like I, Robot, warning everyone about the rise of androids leading to the fall of humanity. The uncanny factor about AIs like Sophia is how realistic she looks. The facial features as well as the facial movements are very lifelike. It can even be argued that it is so realistic that it is almost cringe worthy to even watch her move and interact. The reason being that people looking at her knows she is a robotic unit, but watching her move and interact leaves an uneasy feeling with the person. This uneasy feeling comes from the uncanny valley, a theory developed by Masahiro Mori, which is the relationship between the likeness to human life an object is with the emotional response to said object. Upon writing this, Japan recently gave citizenship to a humanoid AI seven year-old named Mirai. Mirai is a chatter-bot whose name means 'future' in Japanese. Is this decision made by Japan to give citizenship to an AI unit a giant PR stunt to combat the headlines of Sophia? Possibly. On the other hand, it is quite possible that countries such as Japan and Saudi Arabia are the 'founding fathers' per-say of a new trend of welcoming AI units as citizens into other countries of the world.  

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