Saudi Arabia Becomes 1st Nation To Grant Citizenship To A Robot. The Future Is Here!

Tech enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists are not kidding when they say ‘The Future is here’. And as predicted, Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be playing a major part in shaping this future.

We’ve all seen what a world under the thrall of robotics would be in movies like Rajnikanth’s superhit Robot or Pixar’s adorable excuse for AI, Wall-E. And while it’s all fun and fantasy there, it hints at an inevitable future reality—The machines are coming!

And looks like they’ve already taken the first step.

On Wednesday, October 25th, at the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia granted citizenship to an Audrey Hepburn look-alike. What’s the catch? Well, for starters, she’s a ROBOT!

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Named Sophia – The Humanoid, she’s (yes really) a robot designed by David Hanson of Hanson Robotics, Hong Kong. On Day 2, during the Summit of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, she demonstrated her various human-like qualities before an astonished and enthusiastic crowd.

Of course, being granted official citizenship just adds to her humanity and also makes Saudi Arabia the first country to pull off such a feat!

And undoubtedly, Sophia was quite ecstatic! How do we know this? Because she told it to the crowd cheering for her!

“I am very honored and proud for this unique distinction. This is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with a citizenship.”

Sophia The Humanoid even had a nice tête-à-tête with CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin about what she planned to do with her humanoid traits.

“I want to live and work with humans so I need to express the emotions to understand humans and build trust with people. I strive to become an empathetic robot.

There are times even we humans have questions about who we really are. Doesn’t it make you wonder, does Sophia even know she is human? Or a robot who is semi-human? To this, Sophia has quite the comeback!

When Sorkin asked her if she was indeed self-aware, Sophia said,

“Well, let me ask you this back, how do you know you are human?”

Nice one, Soph! We’re pretty sure the applause for this one must’ve been deafening!

But probably the best thing to have happened to Sophia after the citizenship was getting Elon Musk’s attention!

There’s always a fear that the machines are gearing up for world domination. And when Sophia was asked what she thought about it, she shrugged it off with a rather amusing reply!

And Elon Musk, being Elon Musk, had a better idea!

Wow. This could actually happen. So folks, are we ready for the future?

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