An Intelligent Exchange: UEW Students Meet “Sophia”
On Friday, February 9th, the Grade Five and Six students of the Upper Elementary West (UEW) class took the opportunity to meet Sophia, the Artificially Intelligent Robot.
UEW spent the week prior learning about Sophia and coming up with relevant and interesting questions to ask her. Though some were nervous about speaking in front of a crowd and others were a bit apprehensive about meeting Sophia (she has joked about taking over the world, after all), our students thoroughly enjoyed the event.
Though this special opportunity, which was part of the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit, was intended for high school students, our MBTS students participated fully. Almost all of our students took the opportunity to ask questions to Sophia. While Sophia did display conversational abilities, the rapid Q&A seemed a bit out of her scope, with some of her answers not being entirely relevant. We did learn through the session that simple, clear questions work best when conversing with a robot.
Memorable moments from meeting Sophia include: learning about the stages involved in her creation; a joke Sophia shared when asked by one of our students (“Why did the banana go to the doctor? It wasn’t ‘peeling’ well!”); Sophia adamantly declaring that she has no intention to take over the world; and taking a group photo with this animatronic being.
We are thankful for the opportunity to have been involved in this event and are looking forward to more Going-Out Experiences and Field Trips in the future!