Here's a premise for a sci-fi movie about robots and personhood.
Philosophical premise: what if souls emerge from the combination of all human personality traits (love, empathy, curiosity, etc.) So when all the conditions for human personhood appear in a being (human, robot, animal, etc.) then that being counts/is a person.
The plot: computer programmers create a robot that has all the positive human attributes and personality traits (love, empathy, curiosity, etc.) and expect that upon reboot, their creation will "come to life." To their great dismay, the robot indeed becomes operational, but does not display any "spark of life," personality, or humaness. Simply put, there is just something missing.
Through some accident (like a programmer makes the mistake of working on the program while extremely frustrated with office politics) other, negative, human attributes get injected into the robot's program. Now, when rebooted, the robot stands a little looser, looks from face to face, interrupts -- in other words the robot displays humanity and is somehow, maybe inexplicably, clearly and thoroughly alive.
As a subplot, it becomes equally clear (or is at least suggessted) that one or more of the programmers, or administrators, or scientists (or someone) demonstrates that he/she/they are not quite human because they do not display the full range of human personality (maybe they are missing a "bad" human quality).
The author could also introduce lab chimps or something to hint at questions about animal personhood too.
???
negativity is part of what makes us all human! Some have a little more than others *cough* John *cough*
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