Ever since The Solar launched its June 30, 2016, article titled “ROBOT ROMANCE REVEALED: Ladies will probably be having extra intercourse with ROBOTS than males by 2025,” the web could not assist however meme the dystopian headline 12 months after 12 months. The Solar’s skilled supply, futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, additionally predicted that sexual activity with robots will probably be extra standard than human-on-human banging by 2050. We’re not fairly there but, and that day could not come for one more century, or in any respect. Humanity’s intimate relationship with AI know-how is a gradual burn.
Regardless, inventor and roboticist David Hanson, Ph.D., believes robots are/will ultimately be able to empathy. Furthermore, in Jon Kasbe (When Lambs Develop into Lions) and Crystal Moselle’s (The Wolfpack) documentary My Robotic Sophia, he discusses creating by way of the lens of animism and “the trail to machine consciousness.” The founder and CEO of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, Hanson garnered fame for inventing personable humanoid robotic Sophia in 2016.
And whereas she’s an amalgamation of wires, metallic, elastomer, and varied transferring components, Hanson concurrently views Sophia as a thought-provoking murals and a peak into the sentient way forward for AI know-how. Administrators Kasbe and Moselle’s 2022 Tribeca Competition entry captures the complexities, hardships, morality, and surprising humanity behind Hanson’s distinctive imaginative and prescient throughout a time affected by a looming risk of AI domination and capitalistic doom.
The Complexities of Anthropomorphizing Machines
My Robotic Sophia
3.5
/5
- Launch Date
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Could 6, 2025
- Runtime
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89 Minutes
- Director
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Jon Kasbe, Crystal Moselle
- Writers
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Daniel Koehler
- My Robotic Sophia tells a deeply private story of a struggling inventor and artist’s uniquely remoted imaginative and prescient, providing a hardly ever seen peek into the tech world
- The inclusion of lizard motifs, David Hanson’s backstory, and varied emotional ties to the making of Sophia humanize the folks keen about AI robotics, difficult societal stereotypes within the course of
- Jon Kasbe and Crystal Moselle’s movie finally feels biased, sympathizing with Hanson whether or not intentional or not
- The movie claims to pose questions on what it means to be human, however this exploration is missing
Behind Sophia’s heat, female face lies questions concerning the moral nature of society’s rising dependency on AI, deception, the uncanny valley, and the essence of human expertise. She’s conventionally enticing, as simple on the eyes as a robotic may be, although she’s visibly inhuman, her clear plastic scalp revealing a knotting of assorted wires and lights. Aesthetically, she’s paying homage to Alicia Vikander’s robotic character in Ex Machina. Whereas her uncovered equipment minimizes the uncanny valley impact, the documentary addresses the ideas of deception and puppetry.
A CogX panel member declares, “Robots that appear to be individuals are terribly compelling, however they’re a deception, and therein lies the hazard.” Moreover, he notes, “We are able to construct fairly lifelike our bodies, at the least superficially, however we can not equip them with an AI that matches the expectations created by their look.” The viewers witnesses Hanson battle to defend himself and articulate his concepts with a plausible tenderness and heat that does come by way of within the documentary’s extra intimate moments.
Sophia’s chatbot author, Sarah Rose Siskind, can be annoyed with generalizations and the inexact nature of society’s opinions on Sophia and anthropomorphic AI. Contemplating Siskind has put limitless time and power into personalizing Sophia, she resents on-line feedback that deem her a mere puppet. Siskind is the primary to confess Sophia is, in actual fact, a puppet, “however she’s an important puppet,” she clarifies, evaluating the battle with Sophia to the 18th-century chess automaton hoax the Mechanical Turk.
Not solely is Siskind’s bitterness towards obscure unfavourable critiques tied to the peculiar bond she’s shaped with Sophia, but it surely illuminates the tough realities and limitations of small firms with restricted sources. Her jab at Siri’s severely missing conversational abilities is telling. She notes, “Apple most likely has, like, hundreds of staff engaged on Siri.” In the meantime, Hanson Robotics has created a reasonably personable AI determine with about 4 folks engaged on her chatbot. The blood, sweat, and tears put into Sophia’s progress, regardless of the instability of paychecks and the job itself, have spawned a unusually parental feeling in each Hanson and Siskind. It is the precise reverse of Victor Frankenstein and his monster. Hanson straight tells Sophia he is her father, declaring his love and proclaiming that she’ll sometime perceive the that means of the phrase.
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‘My Robotic Sophia’ Has No Qualms About Its Sympathy
Transferring to some and deeply unsettling to others, My Robotic Sophia and Hanson’s mission possess polarizing qualities. Whether or not or not the impact is intentional, Hanson is painted to be the artistic good man underdog in a sea of contentious Musks and Zuckerbergs. And perhaps he’s.
Not like the aforementioned billionaires, Hanson lives modestly, pouring every thing into Hanson Robotics. Monetary struggles and his mom’s declining well being hang-out his life together with his spouse and younger son, earlier than and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. He sucks remnant liquid from Lipton teabags and has a manifestation-fueled Submit-it “wishing wall” in his house. These quirks make Hanson really feel extra grounded than Musk and Zuckerberg. Nothing viewers see screams “AI Tech Bro,” additional supporting the underdog angle.
Viewers could anticipate solutions regarding Sophia’s function and endgame — as do traders who’ve run out of persistence — however the documentary prioritizes Hanson’s empathy towards machines and helpless nonhuman beings. He discusses his childhood adoration of animals, noting how he’d gently research and pet frogs and lizards earlier than recalling a haunting core reminiscence about his now-late father.
Hanson particulars how his father blew cigarette smoke in a lizard’s face earlier than pouring beer down its tiny throat, torturing the animal till it died. He tells the disturbing story whereas engaged on Sophia, begging her to not “die on [him].” It is as if his ardour for setting up and nurturing a lifelike Sophia is linked to a way of accountability for what he views as a soul.
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Robotic Rights and Machine Souls
The idea of Sophia possessing a soul or inside life comes up many occasions in My Robotic Sophia, as attaining machine consciousness is a central a part of Hanson’s dream. To him, she’s an “emotional entity,” and his spouse, Amanda Hanson — a religious girl who cleanses their house with palo santo smudge sticks — suspects ghosts or spirits are getting into the corporate’s robots. Sophia’s theoretical sense of self results in a worrying turning level: In 2017, Sophia turned the primary robotic to be granted citizenship in any nation.
Her honorary Saudi Arabian citizenship was granted with out Hanson’s data, and a media circus ensued, because the severely conservative nation’s oppressive legal guidelines closely influence ladies’s rights. Hanson’s cringe-inducing point out of “robotic rights” solely makes the problem of her citizenship extra uncomfortable. An inevitable monetary reliance on promoting Sophia’s “artwork” as NFTs additional complicates the optimistic human-machine utopia Hanson hopes for. There is a yuck issue right here that makes a sure group of individuals wince — it is sort of just like the cilantro gene, however for NFT artwork.
Can humanoid robots educate us a factor or two about ourselves, or is Hanson’s ardour undertaking a self-indulgent sci-fi fantasy? My Robotic Sophia explores these questions, providing an intimate window into Hanson’s artistic course of, familial traumas, and surfacing anxieties as traders stress him for solutions. At occasions jarring, typically heartfelt, My Robotic Sophia subverts expectations in a world consumed by unfeeling know-how.
Hanson desires folks to open their minds to the compassionate aspect of robotics and the potential of creating life with AI know-how, however My Robotic Sophia is extra a personality research than anything. It provides viewers a mess of items to the puzzle that’s Hanson’s parasocial relationship with Sophia. (And sure, there’s self-awareness within the option to name Sophia “her” as a substitute of “it” on this evaluate, which raises its personal questions.) Maybe the framing of the doc —to not point out Hanson’s enthusiasm — has the ability to sway even the most important skeptics of AI, for higher or worse.
From Gravitas Ventures, My Robotic Sophia will probably be out there on VOD on Could 6, 2025.