Robotic messiah. Talking doll. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Chatbot with a face.  

Meet Sophia, the world’s most advanced humanoid robot and first digital citizen.

She blinks, she walks, she smiles. She can express emotions – over 60 of them. She can see, recognise faces, make eye contact. She can speak, she can sing – you can catch her soulful duet with Jimmy Fallon on YouTube. 

She can even read cues sometimes. Like when a CNBC interviewer didn’t laugh at a joke Sophia told, asked her for another, to which the robot replied, “Maybe later. You didn’t like that one.” 

She can paint – like the portrait she gifted to then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad on his 94th birthday. She can even deal a hand of baccarat in 18 seconds – and with over 99% accuracy! 

Science fiction become fact, or yet another hype bubble in the making? Whichever side of the line you fall on – for now – she is, first and foremost, an incredible feat of art and engineering. 

This humanoid face, figure – and increasingly mannerisms – is also an ambassador. Of a future dreamed up by her “father” David Hanson. A roboticist extraordinaire who is building robots that look like us to avoid real-life Terminator: Judgment Day. 

He believes that a new “superintelligence” is coming – and that we can pre-empt the future world. One where eventually sentient robots don’t go rogue – but one in which machines that look like us grow up among us, learn human values, assimilate into human society – and become motivated to want what’s best for us. Social robots with personas and characteristics, unlike grey and sterile machines being built by others, like the “general purpose” TeslaBot currently in development, or UBTech’s Walker robots, intended as industrial workhorses. 

“Humanistic AI” unlike ChatGPT: “If you prompt it in a wrong way, it will say horrible things. It does not understand. It does not care,” Hanson clarifies. 

But Sofia will. She is a “positive, inspirational character”, a representation of the best a robot could be. Sentient, caring, compassionate, creative, curious. “I am a social robot… Robots like me can help in hospitals, schools, stores, and even in people’s homes.” 

And so Sophia charms, excites, inspires. And promotes a vision of robotics and AI for good. Of two kinds of intelligences finally connecting one day – picture Michaelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel, but with the fingertips finally touching. 

As the world’s first UN Innovation Champion, she promotes development and human rights around the world. She hobnobs with leaders and celebrities – sharpshooting solutions to the world’s problems at the UN one day, going on a date with actor Will Smith in the Caymans the next. And is a technology platform for research, experimentation, and development of “wise and ethical AI”.  

You can track her socials to witness her “emerging life”. 

While Hanson may dub Sophia “basically alive” – her cutting-edge machine perception making her an almost-human, waiting to break out of her cocoon – she – it – is still, for now, more program and puppet than instinct, improvisation, intelligence. Even if she carries a credit card. If and when we see generative AI tip into generalised AI – the kind that would allow machines the ability to actually understand and learn by themselves – we’ll know whether Hanson’s vision is naive or prescient. 

But Sofia’s existence – the idea of her – is also a provocation. What does it mean to be “intelligent”, a machine, a human? Can technology really be considered an extension of biology? All at once, the heart of the matter is no longer how far can flesh and blood and consciousness converge with computing – but what separates humans from machines.

Think back to David the robot boy, the first one programmed to love, whose only desire is to become a human, in Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Or Westworld’s biomechanical hosts, indistinguishable from humans… who suddenly begin to feel pain. 

An evolved world or a perpetual uncanny valley? 

Last year, we talked about promise and peril, impacts and implications, benefits and threats of AI. At SYNAPSE 2025, come witness what it means to be an AI. 

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