Can Human Rights Survive Technology?

Abstract

In October 2017, Sophia addressed the 3,800 attendees gathered for the first-ever Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Her bald head was uncovered. She was unaccompanied by a man. Bearing a striking resemblance to the late actor Audrey Hepburn, Sophia thanked the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for making her “the first robot in the world granted citizenship.” The irony of the humanoid Sophia possessing more rights than real-life Saudi women did not go unnoticed. After all, Saudi women had only won the right to drive months earlier. They, unlike Sophia, were still legally mandated to wear hijabs and to have male guardians make financial and legal decisions on their behalf. Sophia was also exempted from the Saudi law barring non-Muslims from obtaining citizenship. Her declarations that “My AI is designed around human values such as wisdom, kindness, and compassion. I strive to be an empathetic robot” and “I will do my best to make the world a better place” did little to assuage critics of the Saudi regime and those worried about the implications of machines possessing civil liberties denied many people.1