I think we have likely seen pictures of this “Sophia” robot making the media rounds in the last few years, and APNews has an article that puts forth some insights that I was not aware of about the company behind it, Hanson Robotics. Its seems as though the guy behind it all is David Hanson, former sculpture at Walt Disney Imagineering and one of his biggest investors is Disney’s venture capital arm. The Hong Kong based startup is now leveraging China’s toy industry to move forward “social robots” that have gaining your trust in mind…then they kill you.



The Texas-born former sculptor at Walt Disney Imagineering and his Hong Kong-based startup Hanson Robotics are combining artificial intelligence with southern China’s expertise in toy design, electronics and manufacturing to craft humanoid “social robots” with faces designed to be lifelike and appealing enough to win trust from humans who interact with them.

I have $20 that says the sex robot industry outpaces Hanson. Never send an artist to do a lonely engineer’s job (may be NSFW).

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Source: [H]ardOCP – Robots Gaining Your Trust is the Focus