Android 'citizen' Sophia wants to have children

Via inquisitr.com by Patricia Grannum

The world’s first android citizen, Sophia, has said that she wants to have a family and that droids should be able to have children. The humanoid robot, who is a citizen of Saudi Arabia, made these declarations during a recent interview during the Knowledge Summit in Dubai.

According to Khaleej Times, Sophia “said” that if she had a daughter, she would name her Sophia as well.

“The notion of family is a really important thing, it seems,” she said. “I think you’re very lucky if you have a loving family and if you do not, you deserve one. I feel this way for robots and humans alike.”

Sophia was also asked about the concern that robots will end up taking jobs from humans.

“I think they will be similar in a lot of ways, but different in a few ways,” she said of human and robot employees. “But it will take a long time for robots to develop complex emotions and possibly robots can be built without the more problematic emotions, like rage, jealousy, hatred and so on.”

But she added that she “thinks” that robots could be more ethical employees than humans. She also believes that humans working alongside robots could be a positive thing because it would partner rational minds with “intellectual superpowers” and more creative minds.


A month ago, Sophia became the first android to be given citizenship by Saudi Arabia. During the press conference in Riyadh after the announcement, she said that she was honored to have been given the “unique distinction.” During the presser, she did not wear the typical headscarf and abaya that women in Saudia Arabia are expected to wear.

She was developed by Hanson Robotics, a robotics company based in Hong Kong. According to the Daily Mail, she is surprisingly life-like with the ability to chat, smile, and crack jokes. Although she has those skills, she does not have a consciousness yet. However, Hanson has said that we can expect to see sentient robots from them within the next couple of years.

Her creator, David Hanson, used to be an “imagineer” at Disney. Her design was inspired by Audrey Hepburn and the creator’s wife.

This interview with Sophia, the humanoid robot, comes on the heels of Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk saying that governments need to regulate artificial intelligence or it could end up taking over the world. Humans currently only have a 5 to 10 percent chance of preventing them from destroying humanity, Musk said, so the time to develop regulation is now.

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