Giulio Di Sturco on photographing Sophia the humanoid robot

After a period of negotiation, figuring out the kind of pictures he'd shoot and for whom, Giulio set off for Hong Kong in December 2017, where he spent 10 days on assignment for Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, documenting life in the lab and shooting portraits of Sophia. Of course, he'd done his research – he'd spoken extensively with Marcello, read everything available about Sophia, and watched countless videos – so he had a good idea of what he wanted to capture. But, as with any story, reality was unpredictable, causing deviations from the plan.

"There weren't many restrictions, they told me I could shoot everything," Giulio says. "I wanted to do two things: take portraits, and show the process they go through to make Sophia. I asked them not to bother about me and get on with their job. I followed their work from 6am until midnight." He'd imagined a flashy, super tech environment but instead found it was more like a warehouse. “When you're there following the story, your approach changes. Usually the people involved don't see what is and isn't important for the story, so the main thing is to ask as many questions as you can."

Giulio learnt that the lab was involved in a collaborative experiment with the University of Hong Kong called Loving AI, which saw Sophia leading guided meditations for students. "To them this was a boring thing to photograph, but to me it was fascinating – a chance to see Sophia interact." It provided one of the most powerful moments of the assignment. One participant in the experiment was moved to tears by the experience and Sophia spontaneously tried to comfort her. "Of course the guided meditation is something she was programmed to do, but she was also learning."

Teasing out that subtle smile, reminiscent of the Mona Lisa, was hard, but was it harder than with a human subject? "I treated her like a normal person, so for me the interaction was the same, but at the beginning she wasn't reacting, so it was more difficult. I think the way she learnt was by researching on the web, so the expression she had at the end was from a picture, I guess, but it felt human. I knew I was taking pictures of a robot, but when she smiled at me, it was kind of... peculiar."

Keen for as lifelike a shot as possible, Giulio decided to work with a Canon EOS 5DS R. "In the magazine you can see the skin looks real and the image is crisp. I wanted to photograph Sophia as if she was a person, so I needed all the details in the skin." The high-resolution DSLR, with its 50.6MP full-frame CMOS sensor, dual DIGIC 6 processors and low-pass cancelation filter to enhance clarity and sharpness, was the answer. Although Giulio was familiar with his camera, he was working with lights for the very first time. "I thought the lab was going to be a huge place and instead they gave me a really small, dark room."

"I knew the end result that I wanted, and more or less how to get there, but I'd never tried it – that was a challenge. However, that's the nice thing about photography – you can experiment to try and get the best out of what's in front of you. I had that cover picture – the light, the composition, the editing, everything – in mind before I went to Hong Kong, so I'm really happy I achieved that. When I took the picture and saw it in the camera, I knew that the job was done."

Spending time in the lab, Giulio talked at length with the team working on Sophia, particularly Dr Ben Goertzel, founder and CEO of SingularityNET. Even though Giulio saw himself as an observer, he sensed the lab team's enthusiasm for their mission. "Ben really believes in AI and that it will change the world. He's totally dedicated to developing an AI that has the same values as a human being," he says. "I'm not an expert in AI, but I can see it's the future and we can't stop it. We don't know how it's going to end, but it's where the world is going – and it's fascinating."