All beauty, no substance? China’s ‘robot goddess’ Jiajia tongue-tied in live interview in English
Developer says live-streamed talk with US journalist went fairly well, but observers in China say robot needs to go back to drawing board
China’s home-grown humanoid robot Jia Jia fared poorly in her first English-language live “interview” with an American journalist on Monday morning.
The robot stumbled over basic questions in her conversation with Kevin Kelly, co-founder of the tech magazine Wired. The interview was conducted through Skype from the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province.
Adorned with long black hair and traditional Chinese garb, Jiajia was able to realistically blink and smile throughout the dialogue, but largely failed to answer the questions Kelly posed, speaking after seconds-long delays.
For instance, she was unable to respond to questions about the number of letters in the English alphabet, and answered a question about the Great Wall’s location in China with the reply: “China”.