Sorry to respond to this several day old comment, but I think there were quite a few episodes where Data’s personhood was directly called into question, it is a tangential point, but I think it is likely that even if we had a robotic Brent Spiner running around, people might still not be 100% convinced that they are truly sapient, and might consider it an incredibly complex mechanical Turk style trick. It really is hard to tell for sure, even if we did have a “living” AI to examine.
Sorry to respond to this several day old comment, but I think there were quite a few episodes where Data’s personhood was directly called into question, it is a tangential point, but I think it is likely that even if we had a robotic Brent Spiner running around, people might still not be 100% convinced that they are truly sapient, and might consider it an incredibly complex mechanical Turk style trick. It really is hard to tell for sure, even if we did have a “living” AI to examine.