I don't even pretend to understand all the politics -- I'll take your word for it. I was more interested in the AI. Having worked at IBM while they were developing their Jeopardy champion, I got to see the phenomenal results that could be obtained by clever programming married to exhaustive database searches. No self-awareness is required. Edge cases were discovered by understanding how Watson got an answer wrong, and the next iteration was leaps and bounds ahead of the previous one. I imagine Sophia does something similar -- except her database is oriented more toward social media. What I find fascinating is that she is considered a notable lecturer and artist. (Her latest artwork sold for quite a lot, for basically a self-portrait.) And denying an AI personhood based on lack of self-awareness is unfair, considering corporations are considered "legal persons".