Do Robots Deserve Legal Rights?

Saudi Arabia made waves in late 2017 when it granted citizenship to a humanoid robot named Sophia, developed by the Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics. What those rights technically include, and what the move might mean for other robots worldwide, remains unclear. But the robot itself wasted no time in taking advantage of her new, high profile to campaign for women's rights in her adopted country. This would be the same Sophia that, in a CNBC interview with her creator, Dr. David Hanson, said that she would "destroy all humans." So, granting legal rights to robots clearly remains a complicated subject, even if it is done primarily as a PR stunt to promote an IT conference, as was the case in Saudi Arabia.