Walking for any of the big houses during Fashion Week is the goal of many aspiring and up-and-coming models, but Sophia skipped all the middle stages with the stress, the anxiety, the preparation, and the self-doubt models often speak of. Then again, Sophia is no regular model.
Sophia isn't even a regular person, though she is legally a person.
Sophia is a humanoid robot built and designed by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics and activated on Valentine's Day in 2016. The date of activation was no coincidence, you guessed it. Described as a social humanoid robot meant to explore the limits of science and AI (artificial intelligence) and to help humans feel less resistant to integrating robotics and AI into everyday life, Sophia is a sum of countless accomplishments and many world firsts.
She just added a new one to that list: Sophia is the first robot to become a catwalk model, a feat that might have slipped through the cracks even for die-hard fashionistas who kept their eyes peeled on the developments of Fashion Week 2023. During the Boss presentation in Milan, dubbed Boss Techtopia, Sophia made her debut as an FW model.
Photo: Boss
Granted, she fit right in.
For this year's presentation, the Fall/Winter 2023 collection, Boss explored the idea of a corporate future where technology and wellness combined with fashion to create a versatile, highly adaptable workspace. In reality, this translated into '80s-inspired power suits, oversized luxurious coats, and high shoulders over sexy silhouettes against a tech-heavy backdrop that optimized work performance and offered relaxation, depending on the time of day and each situation. CorpCore, they called it.
Boss Techtopia played out like a retro-futuristic Hollywood dream that we've all seen too many times, but it still came across as relevant. Sophia helped with that last part a lot: she served as a receptionist (wearing Boss, of course!), welcoming both models and guests with a friendly (but still creepy) smile and a conversation on whatever topic came to the interlocutor's mind.
Sophia's intro and the entire Boss show are available in the videos at the bottom of the page. Boss leaned heavily on the idea of an AI-reliant future, where robotics and technology help foster human interaction and efficiency and are offset by natural, lush green spaces that ironically aim to rekindle the connection with Mother Nature.
Photo: Boss
Sophia, the "person" with the most advanced robotics
Sophia’s appearance at FW23 for Boss was an organic development at best and a PR gimmick at worst. Whichever it might be, it still signals progress for a robot developed with the specific goal of developing AI for a variety of purposes and for studying human interaction with it under the Loving AI project.
Sophia herself describes herself as "a personification of our dreams for the future of AI, as well as a framework for advanced AI and robotics research, and an agent for exploring human-robot experience in service and entertainment applications." She is an experiment, an ever-evolving project, and the means to promote it all at once.
We should note, though, that Sophia is only a hybrid robot for the time being, which means that, while she's capable of operating in full autonomous mode, she often relies on words and thoughts from her "human friends." However, the goal behind her creation is to determine whether AI sentience can be achieved.
Of the few humanoid robots to have achieved international fame so far, Sophia often takes first billing as the most accomplished and popular.
Photo: Boss
She is also the first robot to be granted citizenship, so she is a person in Saudi Arabia – a move that surprised even her engineers. She has her own credit card, runs her social media alone, and has traveled more than most humans, attending conferences, doing TV appearances, and holding talks on a variety of topics – from the unique point of view of artificial intelligence, of course.
Sophia is also an artist who paints, sings, and even does NFT (non-fungible tokens) art. Her debut on the NFT market sold for a little under $700,000, which, again, puts her in a position many human artists would be jealous of.
Sophia is capable of reading human expressions and gestures and responding accordingly to them. She holds conversations and strives to "achieve goals" with the person she's talking to, and she even "has" emotions of her own, which are simulations. She doesn't walk, but she rolls, but as luck would have it, walking wasn't a prerequisite for her big catwalk debut.
Sophia was designed as a representation of the future, so here's how that future in the corporate world might look with Boss in the picture. If robots are about to take over and go Skynet on us, at least we'll look stylish and extra-sharp when it happens.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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