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AI

Elon Musk Just Got Trolled by an AI Bot

By
Kirsten Korosec
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By
Kirsten Korosec
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October 25, 2017, 6:14 PM ET

Tech billionaire Elon Musk wants the world to know that artificial intelligence is “the greatest risk we face as a civilization.” But one AI robot is pushing back and acting very human like by belittling Musk behind his back. And to a journalist, no less.

Sophia, an intelligent humanoid robot created by Hanson Robotics, made light of the concerns among some that AI robots could be an existential threat to humans during an exchange with Andrew Ross Sorkin, co-anchor of CNBC Squawk Box and columnist at the New York Times. A portion of the conversation was published on Twitter.

During the exchange, Sophia says “My AI is designed around human values like wisdom, kindness, compassion, I strive to become an empathetic robots.” Sorkin replies: “We all believe you, but we all want to prevent a bad future.”

And here comes the creepy punchline: “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.”

Watch your back Elon.

Our @andrewrsorkin, interviewing “Sophia” the robot, of Hanson Robotics:@CNBC @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/Dzw8jS5YSB

— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) October 25, 2017

Sophia was created by David Hanson, founder of Hanson Robotics and former “Imagineers” at Disney Imagineering. He’s known for creating robots that look and act like humans. Sophia was created to look like Audrey Hepburn.

Update, 8:12 p.m. ET: Musk later responded in a tweet: “Just feed it The Godfather movies as input. What’s the worst that could happen?”

About the Author
By Kirsten Korosec
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