Morgui

Morgui (mandarin Chinese for Magic (Mor) Ghost (Gui)) is the creation of Kevin Warwick, a University of Reading cybernetics professor with a long record in attention-seeking robots.

"We want to investigate how people react when they first encounter Mo, as we lovingly like to call the robot. Through one of Mo's eyes, he can watch people's responses to him following them around. It appears this is not deemed acceptable for under 18-year-olds without prior consent from their legal guardian. This presents us with a big problem as we cannot demonstrate Mo in action either to visitors or potential students." said Prof Warwick.

Morgui's five senses include visual and audio, as well as a further three that are extra-sensory, as far as humans are concerned: radar, infrared, and ultrasonic.

In Europe, Japan and the US, researchers have been looking for robots that will respond "naturally" to humans. It therefore follows that the robots must also study how humans respond to them, but Morgui was deemed so frightening it has been banned from interacting with under 18s.

Unfortunately, Reading University's ethics and research committee banned the "scary" robot.

For more info:

• X-rated robots: Professor Kevin Warwick & Morgui
• University robot ruled too scary (The Guardian)
• University Deems Robot Adult-Only

And to think I was only able to make a hamster-lovig chat bot...