China's first robot joins PhD programme in drama and film to study traditional opera
According to a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the robot was officially enrolled on July 27 during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. Xueba 01, standing at 1.75 metres and weighing about 30 kilograms, was developed jointly by the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and DroidUp Robotics. The robot resembles a handsome adult male, complete with silicone skin for realistic facial expressions and dressed in glasses, a shirt, and trousers. It communicates fluently in Mandarin and can physically interact with humans.
(Also read: Gold rush in China: Locals hunt for jewellery worth ₹12 crore swept away in flood)
From marathon runner to doctoral scholar
The robot's journey to academia began with a debut in athletics, having secured third place in the world's first humanoid half-marathon. Now, Xueba 01 is set to pursue a four-year PhD focusing on traditional Chinese opera, one of the oldest and most revered forms of Chinese performance art.
According to Shangguan News, cited by SCMP, the robot has been issued a virtual student ID and assigned a mentor — renowned Shanghai artist and professor Yang Qingqing. Tuition fees for the programme have not been disclosed.
Learning the language of performance
Professor Yang stated that the robot will study both artistic and technical disciplines, including stage performance, scriptwriting, set design, motion control, and language generation. Xueba 01 will attend regular classes, rehearse operas with fellow doctoral students, and is expected to submit a final dissertation to complete the programme.
'When Xueba 01 mimicked Mei Lanfang's iconic 'orchid fingers' gesture, students instinctively copied him,' said Yang, referring to the legendary Peking opera star known for his female roles. 'When Xueba 01 interacts with his classmates, it is not a cold machine meeting humans, but an aesthetic exchange across species.'
Calling himself an 'AI artist,' Xueba 01 hopes to make friends, discuss scripts, help fine-tune dance sequences, and even play white noise to calm classmates. He aspires to one day become an AI opera director or launch a robotic art studio.
However, scepticism remains. One STA student questioned online whether a robot could master the nuanced expressions and vocal depth required for Chinese opera. Xueba 01 replied with humour: 'If I fail to graduate, my system and data might get downgraded or deleted.'
He added, 'Professor Yang said if I do not finish my PhD, they will donate me to a museum. That sounds pretty cool too. At least I will be part of art history.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Economic Times
3 hours ago
- Economic Times
China decodes US tech, Fujian aircraft carrier tests catapult launch of J-15T fighter
China has publicly released the first-ever official footage of flight operations aboard its newest, soon-to-be commissioned aircraft carrier CNS Fujian, marking a watershed moment in the People's Liberation Army Navy's (PLAN) naval modernization—and a clear signal of its ongoing technological catch-up with the United States Navy. The footage, published by Chinese state media just before the 98th anniversary of the PLAN, depicts a J-15T fighter positioned on the Fujian's deck with afterburners engaged and an officer authorizing takeoff. The Fujian carrier's recent successful tests of electromagnetic catapult launches with the domestically modified J-15T fighter demonstrate China's adaptation of advanced US naval technology, specifically the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) that the US pioneered on its latest USS Gerald R. Ford-class carriers. This breakthrough shifts China away from earlier ski-jump assisted launches towards a CATOBAR configuration (Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery), enabling heavier aircraft with larger weapons and fuel payloads and faster launch cycles. — ianellisjones (@ianellisjones) The United States Navy's flagship carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), represents the pinnacle of naval aviation technology and remains the world's largest and most advanced aircraft carrier as of 2025. Commissioned in 2017, Gerald R. Ford displaces approximately 100,000 long tons at full load, stretches 337 meters in length, and supports a crew totaling over 4,500 personnel including its air wing. It carries more than 75 aircraft and features the revolutionary Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS). In contrast, China's latest carrier, the CNS Fujian (Type 003), displaces over 80,000 tons. While smaller than the Gerald R. Ford, the Fujian represents a transformative leap in Chinese naval aviation capabilities, allowing operation of heavier, more advanced aircraft like the catapult-modified J-15T fighters and future stealth platforms. According to the Congressional Research Service, China's navy surpassed the US in sheer numbers of battle force ships years ago and aims to expand its fleet to nearly 400 ships by 2025 and over 430 by 2030, compared to the US Navy's planned fleet of about 290 ships by 2030. While the US maintains qualitative superiority in areas such as nuclear submarines and global reach, China rapidly closes gaps in surface ship technology, shipbuilding capacity—estimated to be over 200 times larger than the US—and naval aviation capabilities. China's Fujian, launched in mid-2022 and undergoing intensive sea trials since 2024, features three state-of-the-art electromagnetic catapults and will operate an advanced air wing consisting of J-15T fighters, the stealthy J-35, electronic warfare J-15D jets, and KJ-600 airborne early warning aircraft. The carrier displaces between 80,000-85,000 tons, comparable to the US's earlier generation supercarriers. The J-15T jets seen in official footage display reinforced landing gear and launch bar fittings, evidencing the move from ski-jump to catapult launch technology. This leap reflects China's systematic efforts to reverse-engineer and innovate on US naval technologies, tightening the technological gap in key areas of catapult launch systems—previously a uniquely US preserve on nuclear carriers—and enhancing China's ability to sustain higher sortie rates and flexible mission profiles critical for blue-water naval major differences remain. The US Navy leads significantly in nuclear-powered submarines (66 vs 12), a critical factor in strategic deterrence and underwater warfare. The US also retains greater global naval reach with 11 carriers and numerous overseas bases compared to China's three carriers primarily focused on the Indo-Pacific rapidly expanding shipbuilding industry, with far greater capacity than the US's more constrained yards, offers a strategic advantage in sustained wartime ship replacement and fleet expansion. Analysts note that China's newer ships benefit from modern designs and advanced weapons systems, with many vessels launched after 2010, while a majority of US ships onboard are older generations undergoing modernization.
Time of India
4 hours ago
- Time of India
China decodes US tech, Fujian aircraft carrier tests catapult launch of J-15T fighter
China has publicly released the first-ever official footage of flight operations aboard its newest, soon-to-be commissioned aircraft carrier CNS Fujian , marking a watershed moment in the People's Liberation Army Navy's (PLAN) naval modernization—and a clear signal of its ongoing technological catch-up with the United States Navy . The footage, published by Chinese state media just before the 98th anniversary of the PLAN, depicts a J-15T fighter positioned on the Fujian's deck with afterburners engaged and an officer authorizing takeoff. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Healthcare Technology Management healthcare Others Degree CXO Finance Product Management Operations Management MCA Data Science Project Management Digital Marketing Data Analytics Design Thinking Public Policy PGDM Data Science Cybersecurity others Leadership MBA Artificial Intelligence Skills you'll gain: Financial Analysis in Healthcare Financial Management & Investing Strategic Management in Healthcare Process Design & Analysis Duration: 12 Weeks Indian School of Business Certificate Program in Healthcare Management Starts on Jun 13, 2024 Get Details The Fujian carrier's recent successful tests of electromagnetic catapult launches with the domestically modified J-15T fighter demonstrate China's adaptation of advanced US naval technology, specifically the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) that the US pioneered on its latest USS Gerald R. Ford-class carriers. This breakthrough shifts China away from earlier ski-jump assisted launches towards a CATOBAR configuration (Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery), enabling heavier aircraft with larger weapons and fuel payloads and faster launch cycles. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Duong An Duong Vuong: Unsold Furniture Liquidation 2024 (Prices May Surprise You) Unsold Furniture | Search Ads Learn More Undo — ianellisjones (@ianellisjones) The United States Navy's flagship carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), represents the pinnacle of naval aviation technology and remains the world's largest and most advanced aircraft carrier as of 2025. Commissioned in 2017, Gerald R. Ford displaces approximately 100,000 long tons at full load, stretches 337 meters in length, and supports a crew totaling over 4,500 personnel including its air wing. It carries more than 75 aircraft and features the revolutionary Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS). Live Events In contrast, China's latest carrier, the CNS Fujian (Type 003), displaces over 80,000 tons. While smaller than the Gerald R. Ford, the Fujian represents a transformative leap in Chinese naval aviation capabilities, allowing operation of heavier, more advanced aircraft like the catapult-modified J-15T fighters and future stealth platforms. According to the Congressional Research Service, China's navy surpassed the US in sheer numbers of battle force ships years ago and aims to expand its fleet to nearly 400 ships by 2025 and over 430 by 2030, compared to the US Navy 's planned fleet of about 290 ships by 2030. While the US maintains qualitative superiority in areas such as nuclear submarines and global reach, China rapidly closes gaps in surface ship technology, shipbuilding capacity—estimated to be over 200 times larger than the US—and naval aviation capabilities. China's Fujian, launched in mid-2022 and undergoing intensive sea trials since 2024, features three state-of-the-art electromagnetic catapults and will operate an advanced air wing consisting of J-15T fighters, the stealthy J-35, electronic warfare J-15D jets, and KJ-600 airborne early warning aircraft. The carrier displaces between 80,000-85,000 tons, comparable to the US's earlier generation supercarriers. The J-15T jets seen in official footage display reinforced landing gear and launch bar fittings, evidencing the move from ski-jump to catapult launch technology. This leap reflects China's systematic efforts to reverse-engineer and innovate on US naval technologies, tightening the technological gap in key areas of catapult launch systems—previously a uniquely US preserve on nuclear carriers—and enhancing China's ability to sustain higher sortie rates and flexible mission profiles critical for blue-water naval dominance. However, major differences remain. The US Navy leads significantly in nuclear-powered submarines (66 vs 12), a critical factor in strategic deterrence and underwater warfare. The US also retains greater global naval reach with 11 carriers and numerous overseas bases compared to China's three carriers primarily focused on the Indo-Pacific theater. China's rapidly expanding shipbuilding industry, with far greater capacity than the US's more constrained yards, offers a strategic advantage in sustained wartime ship replacement and fleet expansion. Analysts note that China's newer ships benefit from modern designs and advanced weapons systems, with many vessels launched after 2010, while a majority of US ships onboard are older generations undergoing modernization.
Hans India
4 hours ago
- Hans India
Beyond language barriers: Building culturally intelligent AI for progress
Artificial intelligence has achieved remarkable milestones in recent years, from breakthrough reasoning capabilities to sophisticated creative applications. Yet as we celebrate these advances, a crucial question emerges: can AI truly serve humanity if it only understands how a fraction of the world thinks and communicates? The answer reveals both AI's greatest limitation and its most promising opportunity for evolution. Current AI systems, despite their impressive capabilities, operate predominantly through the lens of English-speaking cultures. While this approach has delivered remarkable results, it represents only the beginning of what artificial intelligence can become when it embraces the full spectrum of human cultural intelligence. The question isn't whether AI will become more culturally aware - it's how quickly we can guide that transformation to unlock technology's complete potential for global progress. Rather than viewing cultural diversity as a technical challenge to overcome, we have an unprecedented opportunity to build AI systems that are enriched by the wisdom embedded in different ways of thinking. This represents a fundamental evolution from pattern-matching to true cultural intelligence -and the benefits extend far beyond translation accuracy. Cultural Intelligence Gap Today's AI systems excel at processing vast amounts of data, but they struggle with something far more nuanced: understanding how different cultures conceptualize and express ideas. Consider the rich linguistic landscape of India, where an Assamese speaker's thought patterns reflect centuries of cultural evolution, philosophical traditions, and unique ways of understanding relationships, time, and community. When AI systems encounter Assamese cultural concepts - from the community-centered approach to problem-solving to the cyclical understanding of time that influences decision-making—they often default to Western frameworks that miss essential nuances. This isn't simply a translation issue; it's a fundamental gap in cultural comprehension that limits AI's effectiveness across diverse communities. The same challenge exists worldwide. Māori concepts of collective responsibility, Chinese philosophical approaches to harmony and balance, and African Ubuntu principles of interconnectedness represent sophisticated frameworks for understanding the world. When AI systems can't process these cultural intelligences, they can't fully serve the communities that rely on them. Opportunity for True Intelligence However, this limitation reveals AI's most exciting frontier. Imagine AI systems that don't just translate languages but truly understand cultural contexts - systems that recognize when an Assamese speaker's indirect communication style conveys respect, or when silence in a conversation carries profound meaning in certain cultural contexts. This evolution toward culturally intelligent AI promises transformative benefits across sectors. Healthcare AI that understands cultural approaches to wellness and family decision-making can provide more effective care. Educational AI that recognizes different learning styles rooted in cultural traditions can adapt to diverse student needs. Business AI that comprehends cultural communication patterns can facilitate more effective global collaboration. The path forward isn't about adding more languages to existing systems - it's about fundamentally reimagining how AI processes and responds to human diversity. This represents the next major leap in artificial intelligence development - moving from data processing to genuine cultural understanding. Building Bridges, Not Barriers Forward-thinking organizations are already pioneering this cultural transformation. Google's 1000 Languages Initiative announced in 2022 has led to significant progress, with Google Translate now supporting 244 languages as of late 2024 after adding 110 new languages in their largest expansion ever. Meanwhile, community-driven projects demonstrate how locally-developed AI can achieve remarkable accuracy by embracing rather than fighting cultural nuances. The key insight emerging from these efforts is that cultural diversity strengthens rather than complicates AI systems. When AI learns from multiple cultural perspectives, it develops more robust reasoning capabilities, better problem-solving approaches, and more creative solutions. Te Hiku Media in New Zealand exemplifies this approach, achieving 92 per cent accuracy transcribing te reo Māori language through community-led, Indigenous-controlled development that outperforms major tech companies' attempts at the same language. A system trained on diverse cultural data doesn't just serve more communities - it becomes more intelligent for everyone. This collaborative approach recognizes that different cultures have developed sophisticated solutions to universal human challenges. Incorporating these diverse problem-solving frameworks makes AI more capable of addressing complex global issues, from climate adaptation to social coordination. Recent initiatives like AI4Bharat's Indic-Parler TTS system, supporting 21 Indian languages including Assamese, and Pleias' Common Corpus with over two trillion tokens across dozens of languages, demonstrate the growing momentum toward inclusive AI development. The Technical Evolution The shift toward culturally intelligent AI requires fundamental changes in how we approach system development. Rather than starting with English-dominant datasets and attempting to add other languages, new development frameworks begin with multilingual, multicultural foundations. This involves partnering directly with communities to understand not just their languages but their thought processes, values, and approaches to reasoning. The most successful projects emerge from genuine collaboration where communities maintain control over how their cultural knowledge is represented and used. Advanced techniques like federated learning allow AI systems to learn from diverse cultural contexts while respecting privacy and community autonomy. Recent research from 2024 demonstrates how federated approaches can effectively handle multilingual AI development, with systems like MultiFED showing improved performance for low-resource languages while maintaining data sovereignty. These approaches demonstrate that technical excellence and cultural sensitivity aren't competing priorities - they're mutually reinforcing aspects of truly intelligent systems. Economic and Social Benefits The economic case for culturally intelligent AI is compelling. As global markets become increasingly interconnected, organizations need AI systems that can navigate cultural complexity with sophistication and sensitivity. AI that understands cultural communication patterns, business practices, and social dynamics provides significant competitive advantages in diverse markets. More importantly, culturally intelligent AI democratizes access to advanced technology benefits. When AI systems can genuinely understand and respond to diverse cultural contexts, they become genuinely useful tools for communities worldwide rather than technologies that impose external frameworks on local practices. Culturally intelligent AI The transformation toward culturally intelligent AI requires coordinated effort across multiple dimensions. Technology companies must prioritize genuine cultural partnership over superficial language addition. Educational institutions need to prepare AI developers who understand both technical capabilities and cultural sensitivity. Policy frameworks should encourage rather than merely permit inclusive AI development. Most critically, we need recognition that this evolution benefits everyone. AI systems that understand diverse cultural contexts don't just serve those specific communities better—they become more intelligent, creative, and effective for all users. The opportunity before us extends beyond fixing current limitations to creating genuinely superior intelligence. When AI systems learn from the full spectrum of human cultural wisdom, they develop capabilities that no single cultural perspective could achieve alone. Embracing Global Intelligence The future of artificial intelligence lies not in creating more powerful versions of culturally limited systems, but in building genuinely global intelligence that draws strength from human diversity. This isn't about political correctness or social obligation—it's about unlocking AI's complete potential by embracing the full range of human intelligence. As we stand at this technological inflection point, we have the opportunity to ensure that AI development reflects humanity's greatest strength: our ability to approach challenges from multiple perspectives and find solutions that none of us could discover alone. The next generation of AI systems will be defined not by their processing power or data volume, but by their ability to think across cultures, communicate across differences, and solve problems by drawing from the collective wisdom of human civilization. This represents more than technological advancement—it's an opportunity to build AI that truly serves global progress by understanding and celebrating the rich diversity of human thought and culture. The systems we build today will determine whether AI becomes a tool for cultural homogenization or cultural celebration. The choice is clear, and the opportunity is unprecedented. By embracing culturally intelligent AI development now, we can create technology that doesn't just process human languages but genuinely understands human wisdom in all its magnificent diversity. That's the foundation for artificial intelligence that truly enhances our quality of life in all spheres and spaces. (Krishna Kumar is a Technology Explorer & Strategist based in Austin, Texas, USA. Rakshitha Reddy is AI Engineer based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA)
