Sophia the Robot and What it Tells Us about the Current State of AI

By Lelia Erscoi The choice of pronouns is no arbitrary thing- Sophia’s (“Sophia – Hanson Robotics”, 2022) creators are doing all they can to make you think of it as a “her”. From its appearance, modeled on a mix of women’s faces – Audrey Hepburn’s, Egyptian Queen Nefertiti’s, and its own inventor David Hanson wife’s (Chung, 2022) – to the fact that it was granted human rights in Saudi Arabia (Parviainen, Coeckelbergh, 2021), the whole story behind Sophia is a very fascinating one that aims to inspire. However, that’s what it mostly is – a story.