Happy, sad, confused or bored – researchers at Cambridge University have built Charles to mimic all human expressions as part of a ground-breaking project.

The scientists hoped to discover if the machines could respond to the same social cues as humans and encourage people to engage with the machines more, Cambridge News reports.

Charles is made up of a system of computer programmes linked up to a camera – which can read people's faces.

The computer reads the positions of the face, including the eyebrows, jaw and mouth, then sends the information over to Charles who mimics the expression in just two to three seconds.