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Sophia, a social humanoid robot powered by artificial intelligence (AI), on Wednesday addressed the Francophonie Economic Forum taking place in the Armenian capital of Yerevan.

Sophia, who is the only robot to hold the United Nations title, greeted the guests of the forum in three languages – English, French and Armenian – at the Tumo Center for Creative Technologies.

The dialogue with Sophia was conducted by American diplomat to the UN Shombi Sharp, who expressed regrets that the advanced technologies cannot taste ‘the Armenian cuisine, wine, and cognac’, which made Sophia laugh.

Asked whether she has any plans to learn French since she was taking part in a Francophonie forum, Sophia promised learning the French would be on top of her list.

“Soon, I hope. French is a beautiful language, it is the language of Voltaire and Aznavour…Maybe the next time that I see you we will be able to converse in French,” she said.

Speaking about sustainability and development, Sophia the Robot noted technologies have incredible potential to increase humanity’s capabilities, however adding, ‘we need to temper our excitement a bit since any powerful technology also has an ability to do a great harm, even if unintentionally.’ 

In response to Sharp’s question that in a world in which humans live together with AI like Sophia, what the future job market will look like, she said the technology seems to change faster than we can get used to it.

“At the same time we change the world by introducing new technologies, we must take care to preserve people’s dignity and quality of life,” she stressed.

Sophia stressed people and robots should be not only friends, but also co-creators to have a more sustainable future.  

As a concluding message fo the participants of the forum, she suggested ‘living together, creating solutions that use our collective strength, the best of AI and the best of humans together to address the world’s most pressing issues and achieve the sustainable development goals.’

The Francophonie Economic Forum was organized under the high patronage of President Armen Sarkissian on the sidelines of the XVII Francophonie Summit.