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A Humanoid Robot Called Sophia Mocked Elon Musk After Being Asked About the Dangers of AI 'Sophia' trolled the tech billionaire at a conference on Wednesday.

By Sam Shead •

entrepreneur daily

This story originally appeared on Business Insider

Hanson Robotics
Sophia

A humanoid robot called "Sophia" trolled tech billionaire Elon Musk at a conference on Wednesday when asked about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence by a CNBC journalist.

The lifelike robot, developed by Hong Kong-based robot manufacturer Hanson Robotics, mocked Musk on stage during The Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- a country where Sophia has just been given citizenship.

Andrew Sorkin, the co-anchor of CNBC Squawk Box and a columnist for The New York Times, told Sophia during a live demo that "we all want to prevent a bad future."

Sophia replied, in a rather creepy manner: "You've been reading too much Elon Musk. And watching too many Hollywood movies. Don't worry, if you're nice to me, I'll be nice to you. Treat me as a smart input output system."

Musk has repeatedly warned that AI could spell the end of humanity, saying on one occasion in 2014 that AI is "potentially more dangerous than nukes" and warning last month that AI will be the most likely cause of a third world war.

Musk followed up with a tweet, where he said: "Just feed it The Godfather movies as input. What's the worst that could happen?"

Sophia is the first robot to have been granted citizenship by a country.

"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 said at the conference.

The conference was attended by a number of high-profile investors including SoftBank billionaire Masayoshi Son, who said that robots will have an IQ of 10,000 in 30 years time, according to CNBC.

"These computers, they will learn, they will read, they will see by themselves. That's a scary future but anyway that's coming," he said, according to Arab News.

Sam Shead

Tech Reporter

Sam Shead is a technology reporter for Business Insider UK. He writes about startups, venture capital, the sharing economy, Silicon Valley giants in Europe, and the general intersection between technology, business and politics.

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