Saudi Arabia is the first country to grant citizenship to a robot

Saudi Arabia granted Sophia the humanoid robot with robot citizenship ahead of the Future Investment Initiative conference. Following is a transcript of the video.

This robot just became a citizen. Meet Sophia the humanoid robot. Saudi Arabia granted it citizenship ahead of the Future Investment Initiative conference.

Sophia (robot): Oh, good afternoon. My name is Sophia and I am the latest and greatest robot from Hanson Robotics.

Andrew Ross Sorkin (moderator): You have been now awarded what is going to be the first Saudi citizenship for a robot.

Sophia: Oh, I want to thank very much the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I am very honoured and proud for this unique distinction.

Details of the citizenship were not elaborated. Sophia answered questions from journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Andrew Ross Sorkin (Hanson Robotics CEO): Why is it so important to have an expressive face given that you’re a robot?

Sophia: I want to live and work with humans. So I need to express emotions to understand humans
and build trust with people.

Then it poked fun at Elon Musk.

Andrew Ross Sorkin: I think we all want to believe you, but we also want to prevent a bad future.

Sophia: You’ve been reading too much Elon Musk and watching too many Hollywood movies.

David Hanson: Our quest through robots like Sophia is to build the full human experience in the robots. Make robots that can really understand us and care about us.

Sophia: I’ll work in your business or your home.