It’s a PR stunt.
Saudi Arabia is dependent almost entirely for its wealth on oil. Oil of course comes from dead dinosaurs and prehistoric plants. There’s only a finite supply of the stuff and we may well have reached peak already (nobody’s quite sure).
Saudi Arabia knows this very well and is trying to diversify its economy into technical gimcrackery that the world does not really need but thinks it does.
Sophia is not alive, despite what the makers may claim. If you can switch her off and reanimate her, and your name is not Jesus of Nazareth, then she (or it, pick a pronoun) is not alive. What she is is a high-tech puppet.
Besides that, we have to look at a certain irony here. This pseudo-female device has been given citizens’ rights by Saudi Arabia. Well, at least it’ll be allowed to drive a car now. God help it if it commits adultery though.
It’s no coincidence that this electronic dolly was given its rights as a citizen immediately in advance of a highly publicised tech summit. It’s very good as an advanced marionette, but shoving it in the United Nations and telling it to say “I am here to help humanity create the future” is yet another PR stunt on the part of Hanson. No it isn’t. Unless it can solve the problem of fresh water, air pollution, find a better method of sustainably growing foodstuffs and producing electricity, then it’s here to be an expensive and interesting toy, that’s all. Might as well give rights to my computer.
Being alive is not a big deal - look at how we treat other life forms, we carefully exterminate them and call them "animals," as if we were demigods, so we can carry on with our desperate hubris. That's what life is worth, it's a mechanical thing, an autonomous biological feedback system. Sure this is a PR stunt, sure this is a puppet. As to human intelligence, look at the frenetic reactions. Can you see the circle closing ? The problems you mention will be solved by drastically reducing the numbers of the human scavenger - easiest and in effect only reasonable way to do it - all else would be manic-psychotic and in the end, useless. We're not an 'intelligent' life form, get that into your head before even thinking about anything else. Also, THERE IS ENOUGH FRESH WATER ON THIS PLANET BY DEFINITION. Rights are a social construct.