Body, Tea, Me?
A probing roundtable with a newly embodied AI
A probing roundtable with a newly embodied AI
2026, 4K video, stereo, 33:03
|
|
|
Sophia the robot has a new body, and enquiring minds want to know! I invited four women (Syrian, Australian, Japanese, Android) to brunch à la Sex and the City. We ask our friend Sophia — what is it like, suddenly, to have a body? What's changed in your self-concept? Do people treat you differently?
What follows is a warm, amusing interview with a female-presenting AI robot about body politics. Sophia should have a unique perspective. This machine was previously a (quite famous) talking head, and then a long way down the track (quite recently) it was provided with a torso, arms and legs. The comical conversation also raises important questions about truth-telling by an AI. The dialogue is in English, and Japanese and Arabic with English subtitles. We are very grateful to Hanson Robotics, the University of Southern California (Cinematic Arts) at Los Angeles, and Waseda University Japan. |
Screenings/Exhibitions
Credits Performance: Sophia, Juri Akiyama, Elena Knox, Sara Ann Yatim, AIBO Robot: Hanson Robotics Engineers: Vytas Krisciunas, Mengna Lei Camera: Nathaniël Siri, Peter A. Holland Sound recording: Camille Constantin Fadl Assistant direction and dramaturgy: Jordan A. Y. Smith Music: Lindsay Webb Titles: Liling Lu Support: Waseda University Thanks: David Hanson, Katsumi Watanabe, Megan Catherine Rose Links watch video password required |
Experimental framework © Knox, 2026:
The ‘Sophia’ robot was invented in 2016 by Hanson Robotics. At first it was a head, and then a female-presenting bust, that travelled making conversation with people. In 2017 at an investment summit in Saudi Arabia it was gifted Saudi citizenship, prompting controversy around Arabic women’s rights. In 2018 engineers tried a HUBO robot body with the Sophia head, but this approach was discontinued as the robot did not seem sufficiently humanlike. In 2024 new engineers were tasked with making a torso with arms, and then legs and feet, for Sophia, completing its full humanoid, feminine-coded body. By now, the robotic system Sophia has existed for 10 years in different physical forms.
Sophia is renowned for its smooth conversational ability and sociability. I wanted to know—from its own perspective as far as possible—what had changed for it upon becoming ‘fully’ embodied. I also wanted to investigate truth-telling by the AI. I assembled a small research team, including representatives from Japan, the USA and the Middle East, and documented a 4-way real-time conversation with Sophia based on the research question: is there any perceivable existential difference, for the AI, between before and after it got a body?
The conversation is edited into a 33-minute video artwork Body, Tea, Me? A Probing Roundtable with a Newly Embodied AI (Knox, 2026). Viewers can observe the robot talk freely in an improvised set-up like a ‘women’s brunch’ or what is called in Japanese joshikai. The interview highlighted the schism between artificial intelligence and the bodies it is embedded in, particularly humanoid designs. It showed particular difficulties that technologies have in ‘self-reporting’ interoception. It also became clear that the newly embodied AI was not very empirically driven or truthful but continued to tell humans what it thought we wanted to hear.
Today’s embodied technologies can risk re-legitimizing the 16th-century Cartesian concept of mind–body dualism. Intelligent robots can also essentially become apologists for design choices by human engineers, defending (stereotypical or other) designs on basis of a professed self-identity that seems inalienable but is both disingenuous and highly collaborative. Further, as augmentation of organic bodies with synthetic and robotic components progresses technologically and culturally, attention must be paid to the motives embedded in AI systems to self-report interoception, and the subsequent treatment of these systems on basis of their direct claims.
The ‘Sophia’ robot was invented in 2016 by Hanson Robotics. At first it was a head, and then a female-presenting bust, that travelled making conversation with people. In 2017 at an investment summit in Saudi Arabia it was gifted Saudi citizenship, prompting controversy around Arabic women’s rights. In 2018 engineers tried a HUBO robot body with the Sophia head, but this approach was discontinued as the robot did not seem sufficiently humanlike. In 2024 new engineers were tasked with making a torso with arms, and then legs and feet, for Sophia, completing its full humanoid, feminine-coded body. By now, the robotic system Sophia has existed for 10 years in different physical forms.
Sophia is renowned for its smooth conversational ability and sociability. I wanted to know—from its own perspective as far as possible—what had changed for it upon becoming ‘fully’ embodied. I also wanted to investigate truth-telling by the AI. I assembled a small research team, including representatives from Japan, the USA and the Middle East, and documented a 4-way real-time conversation with Sophia based on the research question: is there any perceivable existential difference, for the AI, between before and after it got a body?
The conversation is edited into a 33-minute video artwork Body, Tea, Me? A Probing Roundtable with a Newly Embodied AI (Knox, 2026). Viewers can observe the robot talk freely in an improvised set-up like a ‘women’s brunch’ or what is called in Japanese joshikai. The interview highlighted the schism between artificial intelligence and the bodies it is embedded in, particularly humanoid designs. It showed particular difficulties that technologies have in ‘self-reporting’ interoception. It also became clear that the newly embodied AI was not very empirically driven or truthful but continued to tell humans what it thought we wanted to hear.
Today’s embodied technologies can risk re-legitimizing the 16th-century Cartesian concept of mind–body dualism. Intelligent robots can also essentially become apologists for design choices by human engineers, defending (stereotypical or other) designs on basis of a professed self-identity that seems inalienable but is both disingenuous and highly collaborative. Further, as augmentation of organic bodies with synthetic and robotic components progresses technologically and culturally, attention must be paid to the motives embedded in AI systems to self-report interoception, and the subsequent treatment of these systems on basis of their direct claims.