--- title: Robot Wears Friends' Faces, Determines Your Mood, Feelings description: But it will most likely turn on you, as robots are wont to do canonical: https://time.com/44074/creepy-face-wearing-robot/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-31T20:08:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:08:22.272Z og:title: Robot Wears Friends' Faces, Determines Your Mood, Feelings og:description: But it will most likely turn on you, as robots are wont to do og:url: https://time.com/44074/creepy-face-wearing-robot/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt17dcd0b07df6377b/6986882cf983e76db004d0d6/screen-shot-2014-03-31-at-2-09-28-pm.png?branch=production&width=559&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 559 og:image:height: 314 og:image:alt: Screen Shot 2014-03-31 at 2.09.28 PM og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Robot Wears Friends' Faces, Determines Your Mood, Feelings twitter:description: But it will most likely turn on you, as robots are wont to do twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt17dcd0b07df6377b/6986882cf983e76db004d0d6/screen-shot-2014-03-31-at-2-09-28-pm.png?branch=production&width=559&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Incredibly Creepy Robot Can Wear Your Friends' Faces And Talk To You About Your Feelings > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Mar 31, 2014 8:08 PM UTC  by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Mar 31, 2014 8:08 PM UTC All robots are inherently at least a _little_ creepy, but this one is the winner. It’s called SociBot-Mini and it’s basically a disembodied head and torso that can put on your friends’ faces and then analyze your mood and talk to you about it. A team at Engineered Arts in the U.K. created the desktop bot, which uses a depth-sensing camera to capture and recognize gestures, _New Scientist_[ reports](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25307-robot-can-wear-your-friends-face-and-guess-your-mood.html#.UzmugmTrXx8). Its software allows it to analyze your grimaces and smiles to assess your overall mood. It’s also equipped with chatbot software, so once it has sized up your feelings, it can talk to you about them. (Hopefully the technology isn’t advanced enough to pinpoint your weaknesses and then use them to bring you down, but we can’t be sure.) The creepiest part, though, isn’t the abstract concept of a robot being able to determine your feelings. The creepiest part is what you can physically see with your eyes: the 3D screen that projects a face — either a generic one or one based on a headshot. 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