Women in Saudi Arabia have scorned the government's decision to grant "citizenship" to a female robot who, unlike them, does not need a male guardian nor have to cover her head in public.

Social media was abuzz with questions about whether the robot, Sophia, who was unveiled at a technology conference in the capital Riyadh last week, will be treated like other women in the conservative kingdom now that she is a "citizen".

"It hit a sore spot that a robot has citizenship and my daughter doesn't," said Hadeel Shaikh, a Saudi woman whose four-year-old child with a Lebanese man does not have citizenship.

Women married to foreigners in the gender-segregated nation cannot pass on citizenship to their children.