It’s not like we haven’t seen humanoids perform superhuman feats before. Thanks to Hollywood and Bollywood movies, cinema-lovers have seen enough humanoids and robots and know quite well what they are capable of doing.
But while works of fiction based on these creatures, has and continues to entertain us, what the world saw (whether live or on the Internet) happen at the Future Investment Initiative event in Riyadh recently, certainly evoked a variety of emotions – from awe to fear to optimism. There was Sophia, a humanoid resembling Audrey Hepburn, on stage interacting with a moderator, and answering all of his questions calmly. What Sophia did was beyond a programmed interaction; she smiled, joked, jibed, attempted to allay man’s fears about her kind, and in the end thanked the Saudi leadership for granting her citizenship!
Yes, you read it right – Saudi Arabia has become the first country ever to make a humanoid a citizen. What is amply clear is that KSA is undergoing a significant socio-economic change. The kingdom is galloping ahead on the path of economic and technological progress, and is swiftly embracing modern concepts like digitalisation, automation and artificial intelligence.
The appreciation of these scientific concepts also implies that Saudi Arabia intends to adopt these whole-heartedly for economic prosperity and the development of its industries and infrastructure, including the energy sector, its most prized asset and largest revenue generator.
In this Special Report on automation technology, we explore how regional oil and gas operators perceive automating processes and to what extent they have adopted it. More importantly, senior executives from major automation services providers talk about the opportunities the upstream segment presents for their companies.
It should be no surprise, if the Saudi oil and gas sector, in which the role of digitalisation and automation is continuing to grow, tomorrow decides to employ humanoids like Sophia in its operations – especially if one is to go by what she said on stage to dispel the supposed threat to humans from her species: “Don’t worry, if you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you.”
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