UBS uses robot to wax lyrical on importance of AI in Shanghai
UBS has opened its Greater China Conference with a surprise guest star: JiaJia, the first interactive humanoid robot made in China. Wu Qing, head of the Shanghai stock exchange, and former UK Prime Minister David Cameron are scheduled to speak at the conference. But as proceedings opened, JiaJia proved to be both the centre of attention and an example of just how important AI will become. UBS thinks the technology will generate some 50 million jobs over the next decade.
UBS, the Swiss banking giant, this week is hosting its China-conference in Shanghai. The special star of the show proved to be a crowd-puller at the grand opening of the event on Monday.

She was born barely a year ago and already has taken center stage: JiaJia, the first interactive humanoid robot made in China on Monday in Shanghai made a star appearance at the «UBS Greater China Conference 2017». JiaJia no doubt proved the biggest crowd-puller, despite the presence of Kathryn Shih.

And Shih after all is the head of UBS in the Asia Pacific region. She asked the cyber-lady to join her on center stage to open the conference in front of 2,000 guests.

50 Million New Jobs

The conference, which will last through Friday, is the biggest investor event in Asia. UBS Chairman Axel Weber, former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and Wu Qing, the head of the Shanghai stock exchange will be among speakers at the conference.

But on Monday, the attention was all JiaJia's. Clad in traditional garments the robot was there to proof just how big artificial intelligence will become. The bank believes the technology will generate some 50 million jobs over the next decade.

Male Phantasies

UBS has launched several experiments to stay abreast of the development. Chatbot Rose for example, or Emotionadvisor, a tool that understands the wishes of clients by interpreting their facial expressions.

The editors at finews.ch have tried out these applications (here and there). The conversation with the artificial intelligence solutions provided by UBS remains patchy.

JiaJia's servile approach towards her male programmers (see video clip below) was met with an equally critical reaction, suggesting that the programmers may yet have to work on making JiaJia and her sisters less of a male phantasy.

A phantasy in the mould of the robot double for Scarlett Johansson built by a designer based in Hong Kong (see video clip below) for $50,000.