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Rubberized faces stretch into familiar shapes, driven by tiny motors and a distant version of artificial intelligence—is this the future?
Meet Sophia, a social robot created by former Disney Imagineer David Hanson. Modeled in part after Audrey Hepburn and Hanson's wife, the robot was built to mimic social behaviors and inspire feelings of love and compassion in humans.
But for photographer Giulio Di Sturco, seeing Sophia at press events asher creators promoted their AI business SingularityNETwasn't enough. As he searched for a visual metaphor for the future, he wanted to see the robot's place of creation, too.
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Engineers work in the Hanson Robotics lab in Hong Kong, which is often referred to as the "house of Sophia."
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
Sophia, seen here being tinkered with in the lab, was designed in part to resemble actress Audrey Hepburn.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
A sound engineer at Hanson Robotics works with Sophia. The robot has been able to give speeches and interviews with the press.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
Diagrams like these help engineers design Sophia's range of more than 60 facial expressions, which are based on human facial movements.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
A closeup shows Sophia's transparent hand.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
Ben Goertzel, one of world's leading experts on artifical general intelligence, visits the Hanson Robotics lab in Hong Kong.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
Hanson Robotics also created a humanoid robot that resembles famed physicist Albert Einstein, which has been used in schools as a teaching tool.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
The expressive and realistic Einstein robot was a prototype for Sophia.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
Sophia sits at the ready in the Hanson Robotics lab.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
Eventually, Di Sturco became the first photographer to step inside Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics—a frenetic space spilling over with robotic parts and human technicians stitching them together. The setting's strangeness only deepened once he started photographing his most peculiar subject.
“In the beginning, it was a bit difficult. [Sophia] didn’t recognize the camera ... but after three days, she kind of learned,” Di Sturco says. “I don’t know if the engineer put something in the software, or if she went online and did some research, but she started to pose.
“It was actually really strange—at one point, I realized I was even speaking with her,” he adds. “I had to step back and realize that she was a robot, not a human being.”
I HAD TO STEP BACK AND REALIZE THAT SHE WAS A ROBOT, NOT A HUMAN BEING.
GIULIO DI STURCOPHOTOGRAPHER
Sophia might recall the self-aware robots inEx MachinaorWestworld, but to be clear, no robots have yet achievedartificial general intelligence (AGI), or versatile humanlike smarts. When talking with journalists, Sophia climbs her way through prewritten trees of responses like a chatbot. When giving a speech,she's performinglike Abe Lincoln at Disney World's Hall of Presidents.
In the face of Sophia's ubiquity, AI researchers have criticized media outlets for overselling her capabilities: “This is to AI as prestidigitation is to real magic,” Facebook's chief AI scientist Yann LeCunquipped in January 2018, in response to aTech Insider“interview” of the robot.
Sophia's creators argue in turn that her expressiveness alone represents a major feat. According toa publication on Sophia's software, deep neural networks let the robot discern someone's emotions from their tone of voice and facial expression and react in kind. Sophia also can mirror people's postures, and her code generates realistic facial movements. Hanson has since patentedthe flexible rubber skinthat covers Sophia's face.
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A student at the University of Hong Kong participates in a guided meditation session with Sophia.
PHOTOGRAPH BY GIULIO DI STURCO
“None of this is what I would call AGI, but nor is it simple to get working,” AI researcherBen Goertzel, who designed Sophia's “brains,” said inan interview withThe Verge.“And it is absolutely cutting-edge in terms of dynamic integration of perception, action, and dialogue.”
For Di Sturco, all of this adds up to a compelling photographic subject: a machine that can at once look utterly human and utterly devoid of life.
“She started to look at me and smile, and I looked at her, and at that point for me, she was not human, but there was kind of a connection,” he says. “You kind of get out of the lab, the future, and you realize something crazy: There issomethingthere in Sophia.”
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Seeing Sophia from behind offers a glimpse at the robot's technological complexity.
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