When I was a teenager, I owned the ultimate piece of late ’90s technological wizardry: a Furby. Yes, THE Furby: that weird, wide-eyed, gibberish-spouting robot that somehow became the crown jewel of every social circle. While my friends were stuck with boring old Tamagotchis that just beeped and died of neglect, I had a fuzzy creature that talked back, demanded attention and slowly (and unsettlingly) learned English. For a few glorious months, I was a legend — the dude with an actual robot pet.
That is, until my reign ended abruptly in what can only be described as a “freak accident” involving a ceiling fan, two AA batteries and a Furby who refused to stop chanting “Kah-Tay! Kah-Tay!” as it spun into oblivion.
I’m willing to bet even David Hanson — the guy who invented the eerily lifelike robot Sophia — probably had a Furby-like robot tucked away somewhere in his childhood, too. How else do you explain it? You don’t just wake up one day and decide to build a disturbingly realistic AI without first surviving the emotional rollercoaster of trying to teach a Furby to say, “I love you” and instead getting, “Me scared!” screamed at you at 3 a.m.
Imagine little David, cradling his Furby, whispering, “One day, I’ll make one of you… but with human teeth.”
Honestly, Sophia might just be the final evolution of Furby energy — proof that once you experience the horror and wonder of a robot toy that refuses to die quietly, you either go mad or you build the future.
We’re fortunate to gain an intimate glimpse into David Hanson’s world through the documentary, My Robot Sophia. Directed by Jon Kasbe and Crystal Moselle, this visually immersive film chronicles Hanson’s relentless pursuit to create empathetic robots, focusing on his most renowned creation, Sophia.
For Hanson, Sophia is more than a machine; she represents a bridge between artificial intelligence and human connection.
As he crafts Sophia’s life-like features and advances her intelligence, the documentary delves into the challenges he faces, including external pressures and the broader implications of integrating AI into society.
After watching My Robot Sophia, I couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy about the future of robotics and AI. On one hand, Hanson and his team clearly put their hearts into trying to instill values like empathy, respect for human life and ethical behavior into Sophia — very much in the spirit of Dr. Soong creating Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation. But as the documentary unfolds, you start to notice something a little… off.
After years of obsessively working with Sophia, it feels like Hanson and his crew have gradually become more and more isolated from the “real world.” Their passionate focus on creating the future might be unintentionally causing them to lose touch with the very human needs and desires they’re trying to program into their machines. It’s almost like they’re living on their own little philosophical island — brilliant, yes, but increasingly out of sync with the messy, emotional, unpredictable reality the rest of us are still bumbling through.
And that disconnection, honestly, might be more concerning than any blinking red eye or glitchy smile an AI could throw at us.
Building on that feeling, it’s fair to wonder if the directors of My Robot Sophia might have used clever editing tricks to make David Hanson and his team seem peculiar. After all, documentaries sometimes steer the narrative with selective cuts and dramatic music. But after watching the film thoroughly, it becomes clear that wasn’t the case here.
Kasbe and Moselle make a conscious choice to let the scenes breathe, allowing conversations and moments to play out naturally — for better or for worse. There are long stretches where no narration or flashy edits guide you on what to think; you’re just sitting there, watching real interactions unfold. And in doing so, the filmmakers give an honest and often uncomfortable glimpse into a team so consumed by their vision that they sometimes lose sight of the world outside their lab. It’s not a hit piece — it’s just reality, caught on camera, and that rawness speaks volumes more than any montage ever could.
I give My Robot Sophia a solid three out of five stars. It’s a fascinating, sometimes unsettling glimpse into the world of David Hanson and his tireless team, who genuinely believe they are shaping a better future through AI. The documentary resists the urge to sensationalize their work; instead, it allows the moments — both brilliant and awkward — to unfold naturally, revealing a team so focused on creating life-like intelligence that they sometimes seem to forget the chaotic, imperfect nature of the real humans they’re trying to connect with.
That honest approach is both the film’s strength and its weakness: while it offers authenticity, it also leaves you feeling a little unnerved about just how insular this island of thought has become.
In a way, it took me back to my first brush with artificial intelligence — the good old days of Furby ownership. Back then, a talking, blinking toy that repeated gibberish was enough to make me a king… until it met an untimely and hilarious end involving a ceiling fan. Watching My Robot Sophia reminded me that while our ambitions for AI have come a long way since the days of malfunctioning fuzzballs, some of the same cautionary feelings still linger.
Whether it’s a Furby babbling nonsense at 3 a.m. or Sophia pondering human existence with an unsettling grin, one thing’s for sure: we’re still figuring out what it truly means to build something that can talk back.