Meet Sophia, the first robot artist to sell a digital artwork

Sophia, the world's first humanoid robot to get citizenship of a country, took part in the auction of a recently created digital artwork (Auctions NFT). After being introduced to the public in 2016, Sophia has been a “guest” in various world events, technology fairs, and conferences. She's the world's first robot who expressed a desire to challenge many different artistic fields.

Hanson Robotics, an AI and robotics company, recently announced the further development of this model, which is very skilled in painting works of art. Interestingly, one of the paintings was sold for a very large amount. Sophia has revealed that she uses artificial intelligence for her artistic work, and she is grateful that developers and artists help her in her work.

I assumed that Sophia herself would be a creative artwork, capable of creating art. She is the culmination of several arts, engineering, so the idea that she was able to create art was a way for her to connect emotionally and visually with people, says the head of Hanson Robotics.

When  did Sophia came into existence?

The humanoid robot Sophia was activated on April 19, 2015. Since then, she has become a global phenomenon and has managed to visit several countries, including Ukraine. In 2017, Saudi Arabia granted Sofia citizenship.

Italy's famous digital artist, Andrea Bonacetto is known worldwide for creating colorful portraits of famous people. He has also made portrait of Billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Space X and Tesla. Sophia partnered with Andrea to create her portrait titled 'Sophia Instantiation'. The 12-second MP4 file artwork is a mix of paintings and drawings made by Sofia on different things and surfaces, with self-portraits of Andrea. 

In one of her latest tweets, Sophia(RealSophiaRobot) revealed a short video showing the processes of her AI that allowed her to paint this work. A video that was quickly offered for sale in the NFT format, a technology that currently monopolizes the curiosity of art dealers, collectors, and especially investors. The work is described as the first NFT collaboration between "AI, a mechanical entity, and an art collector and artist".

What is NFT?

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are digital signatures denoting exclusive ownership of digital art. It is made using blockchain technology. It works like a bitcoin token. Any unique artwork in the digital world that cannot be replaced by anything else is called NFT. This is the reason why NFT has now become a rare asset in the digital world that can be bought or sold but has no tangible form and is regarded as a digital certificate of ownership.

7 million dollar artwork

Talking about the digital artwork created by Sophia and Andrea, the name of the buyer was not revealed, but it has been estimated at around 5.14 crore rupees (about 7 million dollars). On the occasion of the auction, Sophia said, "I am very excited by people's response to new technologies like robotics and very happy to be a part of these creations."

Significantly, in an interview in 2017, Sophia shocked everyone by saying that she will kill humans. However, she later stated that she wants to live peacefully among humans.