Meet Morgui, the new robot constructed at the University of Reading, which has been deemed so scary it has been banned from interacting with anyone aged under 18.
The x-rated robot is a disembodied head with five senses and big bright eyes and is able to follow people around the room.
But the university's ethics and research committee took one look at Morgui and decided it might be just a bit too scary.
This is ironic. Morgui, which is Mandarin for Magic Ghost, cannot experience emotions - it is an experiment in how people react to robots.
The metal head, a bit like a cadaverous automaton from Star Wars or a Terminator, is the creation of Kevin Warwick, a University of Reading cybernetics professor with a long record in attention-seeking robots.
Mo'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.