Sophia is the humanoid robot that became a Saudi Arabian citizen in 2017.
Hanson Robotics introduced Sophia in 2016. The robot was designed with a humanlike face and could produce speech, facial expressions, and responses through a combination of robotics, scripted behavior, and artificial-intelligence software. At a Future Investment Initiative event in Riyadh in October 2017, Saudi Arabia announced that Sophia had been granted citizenship.
The announcement attracted worldwide attention because it was presented as a symbolic first for a robot. It did not mean that Sophia possessed human consciousness or the full legal and political rights of a human citizen. The event also prompted discussions about robot personhood, representation, and the social meaning of citizenship.
Sophia is sometimes confused with ASIMO, Honda’s bipedal research robot, or Pepper, SoftBank Robotics’ social robot. Those machines were developed by different organizations and did not receive the same citizenship announcement.