China unveils first AI robot pursuing PhD

VHO - At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) recently held in Shanghai, the robot named "Scholar 01" was officially registered as a doctoral student in Film and Drama Studies at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, class of 2025.

Robot “Scholar 01” has officially enrolled as a doctoral student in the Film and Drama Studies program at the Shanghai Theatre Academy

According to the Global Times , the robot received a "notice of admission" that simulated the real thing, in traditional red.

This is the first time in China that an intelligent robot with a physical body has been accepted into a doctoral program, taking classes alongside human graduate students for the next four years.

“Scholar 01” is described as “A Body Smart Performance Artist”, “An Art-Tech Explorer” and “A Digital Opera Heir”.

The robot is 1.75m tall, weighs about 30kg, and is an optimized version of the "Walker No. 2" robot, which won third place at the world's first humanoid robot half-marathon held in Beijing.

According to experts, the curriculum of “Scholar 01” is specially designed, including modules: basic, art, system and task. The content ranges from perception and cognitive modeling, multimodal data fusion, to evaluation of results in the form of “thesis defense” like regular graduate students.

The emergence of “Scholar 01” is seen as a groundbreaking experiment in Chinese higher education , opening up a direction for integration between generative AI and theater creation, as well as between expressive intelligence and specialized performance training.

The project marks the beginning of an interdisciplinary exploration between art and technology, with the ambition to redefine the future of art education.

Source: https://baovanhoa.vn/nhip-song-so/trung-quoc-cong-bo-robot-ai-dau-tien-theo-hoc-tien-si-158474.html