AI Robot, Sophia, became the first robot citizen. But was there more to the story and, although impressive and featuring genuine AI, do the animatronic features of Sophia suggest the goal here is the appearance of humanity – rather than an extension of it? This caused widespread uproar amongst human rights groups and on social media, and it was picked up by many of the big media outlets, but it turns out that the whole affair was mainly a PR stunt. The eye-grabbing headlines were a well strategised ploy to promote a tech summit in Saudi Arabia, but some experts say this sort of approach to robot rights is actively damaging, both to public understanding of technology and to civil society itself. So what about Sophia's amazing conversational abilities that led to the robot having an argument with Elon Musk?