Sophia, the humanoid robot, is set to become a new NFT Avatar for Metaverse

Sophia, the much famous humanoid robot, who has been in news globally after addressing the United Nations, is in news again. Apart from appearing in New York's Fashion Week and performing in "Tonight's Show" she has gone as far as to interview Germany's Chancellor, Angela Markel. But, this time for a reason of far different nature. It is a bot revolution of the latest kind, with artificial intelligence (AI) as the motive force.

Sophia, who has been granted Saudi citizenship, is soon going to acquire a new virtual anime avatar. She will metamorphose into hundred non-fungible tokens (NFT) that will have autonomous interaction with people in a gamified ecosystem. Hanson Robotics, the company that is credited as the creator of Sophia, aspires to make such tokens a key medium for numerous concurrent interactions, cutting across media platforms and devices. Such aspiration not only relates to large-scale impact but it also seeks to bring a new dimension to the use of AI. If one pays heed to what Jeannie Lim, the lady behind Sophia's virtual birth, the vision that lies behind lending Sophia a new avatar also concerns efforts to publicize the linkage between humanity and (new) technology. More specifically, it is a response to critics who constantly generate fear of the destructive and anti-human tendencies of new technology.

Sophia's highly interactive reincarnation as NFT opens up new possibilities of unique unit of data, stored on a digital ledger, being used for easily-reproducible items such as photos, videos, 3D models, audio, and other types of digital files. The creators this time wish to foreground such possibilities based on love and care. Sophia in her new avatar is thus sought to be projected as an 'anti-thesis' to the thesis of malevolent technology as expounded by critics. It is also expected by those who created Sophia that the general perception that robots are basically lifeless and nothing else, will be challenged by highly empathic, super intelligent and life-like machines like her. While the technology-humanity debate is not going to die anytime soon, the crux of the matter is that this new development will definitely add a new angle to the debate by bringing AI closer to people in a novel way.

16 December, which is only a week away, is the D-day when the world is going to witness the inaugural auctioning of the NFTs on the Binance NFT marketplace.