Reports about the world’s first-ever humanoid surrogate robot nearing completion at a robotics company in China have sparked controversy about the potential ethical implications of such a device.

On August 8th, Chinese science and technology media outlet Kuai Ke Zhi published an interview with Zhang Qifeng, a PhD at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and the CEO of Kaiwa Technology, a robotics startup working on a revolutionary pregnancy robot. In it, Qifeng revealed that his company was very close to completing the world’s first humanoid pregnancy robot featuring an advanced incubation pod integrated within a robotic abdominal module. The revolutionary robot is much more than a simple incubator, with Qifeng claiming that it is capable of carrying a 10-month pregnancy and giving birth to a live baby, like a real person.

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