China’s hottest robot is drawing looks once again following an appearance at an economic conference in Shanghai on Monday.

While many deep-pocketed investors and heavy hitters may have been in attendance, all anyone could talk about was Jia Jia, the stunningly lifelike robot there to greet guests and answer invasive personal questions.

“You are a handsome man,” Jia complimented one conference-goer, but when asked about her relationship status, the “robot goddess” replied that “I prefer to stay single.” What a tease,
Apart from discouraging admirers, Jia also has a firm command on the day’s weather and small talk. She is capable of using body language, auto-GPS and cloud service during her interactions with humans.

This life-like cyborg is the brain child of Chen Xiaoping and his colleagues at the University of Science and Technology of China, who unveiled the technology today in Hefei, capital of east China’s Anhui Province on Apr 15, 2016. It took the team three years to complete the robot, which can speak, show micro-expressions, move its lips and body, yet seems to hold its head in a submissive manner.

The humanoid is programmed to recognize human/machine interaction, has autonomous position, navigation and offers services based on cloud technology.

Compared to previous interactive robots, Jia Jia’s eyeballs roll naturally and its speech is in sync with its lip movements, in addition to her human-like form, said team director Chen Xiaoping.

“We hope to develop the robot so it has deep learning abilities. We will add facial expression recognition and make it interact more deeply with people,” said Chen. Chen said he hoped Jia Jia would become a wise “robot goddess.”

More about Jia Jia 佳佳:
Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China have unveiled on Apr 15, 2016, a robot with extremely realistic female features named Jia Jia.

The Jia Jia robot is roughly 160 cm tall and weighs less than 50 kg, which is apparently the desirable height and weight considered by many mainland Chinese. Her beautiful face is modeled after the facial features of the five most beautiful girls at the university.

Jia Jia is able to chat, display facial expressions and move its body. She is also able to detect where she had been placed. Jia Jia can automatically detect when people are taking pictures of her, and if she senses they are too close, she tells the person to stop.

The researchers are working on making Jia Jia more sophisticated so that she may interact with the environment even more without prior programming.

The robot received mixed feedback on social media, with some people saying on Weibo that Jia Jia looks cute and realistic, while others said her super lifelike feature make her look scary.