Saudi Arabia makes history after introducing "Sara", the first-ever robot that speaks Arabic and performs popular local dances, according to a report by the state news agency SPA.
The "Sara" robot was created in partnership between Saudi Digital and Qss Company and has the ability to engage with all visitors while also performing all famous dances and answering questions from them. Sara is equipped with a camera that, thanks to artificial intelligence, can gauge how far away people are from it.
"Hello Sara"
Sara warmly greeted visitors to the Saudi Digital Pavilion during the LEAP 2023 conference, a huge global gathering for technology and digitization developments in Riyadh.
LEAP 2023, now in its second edition, opened at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center with the theme "Towards New Horizons".
Saudi Digital and Qss Company collaborated to create the robot Sara, which can interact with all visitors, perform all popular dances, and respond to questions.
The artificial intelligence-powered camera in Sara can gauge how close a person is standing in front of it and can initiate a conversation when the visitor says, "Hello Sara."
Additionally, the robot has a pre-trained model that can identify various Saudi dialects, examine and comprehend words, and then offer the appropriate response in the form of text.
"At #LEAP23 today, I'm proud to meet Sara. Sara is the first Saudi humanoid robot, Sara speaks the native Saudi language through the AI speech recognition system," one of the visitors tweeted on Feb. 7.
Sophia's Introduction at Saudi Arabia
It is also worth noting that Sophia, a robot built by Hanson Robotics in Hong Kong, received citizenship in Saudi Arabia in October 2017-making it the first nation in the world to do so.
"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 in her debut at the Future Initiative in Saudi's capital Riyadh.
According to Interesting Engineering's report, Sophia began advocating for women's rights in the country just one month after her citizenship.
David Hanson, CEO of Hanson Robotics, said that Sophia is an avid advocate of human rights and the rights of women in particular.
Sophia was introduced at a time when women from all over the world pointed out how a country like Saudi Arabia can give the robot citizenship that quickly when it is not even allowing women to drive.
Human rights advocates also questioned how a robot created by a man can advance socially faster than the entire nation's female population in just one day.
Saudi Arabia also introduced three new robots in September 2022 to recite the Quran, give lectures, and issue the azan, or call to prayer, at the holiest mosque in Islam, located in Mecca
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