Reminds me a bit of the chess robot that broke a child’s finger: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/24/chess-robot-gr...
What annoyed me at the time was them describing the child as having broken some “rule” about waiting for the robot or something.
We should reject this framing. Robots need to be safe and reliable if we’re going to invite them into our homes.
This was definitely a glaring safety issue and the company should review all its failure modes that show up in public but an ”emotional” response this was not.
>displayed aggressive behavior
>swinging its arms in a manner described as aggressive and violent, similar to human behavior
I can understand aggressive and violent as descriptions of behavior that don't necessarily (on charitable interpretation) imply an internal emotional state.
Obviously there's a difference, but similarities are uncanny.
Also take into account that these humanoid robots are specifically designed to integrate into spaces which usually were not used by robots before, which immediately means more potential contact between them and non-trained personnel, even civilians.
I feel we are quickly approaching ST:TNG "The Measure of a Man" territory here: At what point does a machine stop being a machine and becomes a being, a strange, technological being, sure, but a being nonetheless. After all, there's a good argument to be made that we are essentially biological robots.
What is very clear from the video is that the robots are an order of magnitude heavier and stronger than a person. That’s all you really need to know.
When one wants to be picky, we can't be certain about other people's emotions either. A psychopath may not feel any anger when hitting you, or he might be feeling something very different from what a normal person would label "anger".
IMO this means we won’t be comfortable with robuts and safety critical applications until they are well, well beyond human capabilities. This is where I think the crowd that aims for “human-level performance” is wrong; society won’t trust robuts until they are much, much better than humans.
I saw a video of the Unitree [1] robot doing a kung fu routine the other day. I imagine developers are constantly programming in some pre-scripted moves. Similar to all the Boston Dynamics demo videos. They're great for showing off movement. Conceivable that someone could run the wrong demo routine. Imagine the Atlas robot doing it's classic backflip in the middle of a crowd.
This article seems to try to ride the fears of AI and "bots are taking our jobs" but really this looks like plain old badly written software.
Large machines operating near people should always have failsafes. Having handlers who are expected to drag the bot around IMO isn't enough.
But if you can’t tell if it’s “angry” then we have to assume it’s always unsafe. Of course this was always true.
Also reminds me of when Uber got kicked out of California to test self driving cars, so they moved to Nevada and promptly killed a woman.
I guess it’s not surprising that safety is taking a back seat in robotics development everywhere in the world. It’s a mad race for profits of untold scale. But it would be so great if the companies that win would be the companies that don’t fumble on human safety, taking perhaps a slower approach but one that kills/maims fewer people.
The vast majority of previous transport tech, including horses and mules, was way more gory and dangerous than self-driving cars are.
This includes quite recent developments. How many people died on a Segway?
Those police officers need a catchy name.
I went to a rented house near campus where they had a normal living room set up and sat me down on a dining chair in the room and handed me a box with a button on it.
"The robot will approach you. Just press the button when you feel like it is getting too close" they said.
They left the room so I was alone, and a few minutes later the wheeled robot entered the room and started slowly but deliberately to move towards me.
Let's just say the robot got too close.
I was sat there alone as the robot moved towards me. I was frantically mashing at the button but it did not stop until it actually collided with my feet and then stopped.
To this day I am not sure if it was meant to stop or not, or even if it was a robotics research project at all or actually a psychology research project.
In hindsight it was as terrifying as it sounds. Still, I got £5 for it.
Having been involved in failure tolerant design for mechanical, electronic and software systems, I think I can say that this is an aspect of engineering that is well understood by those working in industries that require it.
Generalizing --perhaps unfairly-- I imagine that most engineers working on this class of robot have had little, if any, exposure to failure tolerant designs. They cost more, require more attention and analysis of designs and lots of testing. However, as robots of many forms interact with humans, this type of resiliency will become critically important.
A practical home or warehouse robot that can lift and manipulate useful weights (say, 20 or 30 Kg) will have enough power to seriously hurt someone. If a single sensor failure, disconnection or error can launch it into uncontrolled behavior, the outcome could be terrible.
I did not think I’m going to see this in my lifetime after watching Animatrix
Something like:
1. They shouldn’t be able to overpower a young adult. They should be weak. 2. They should be short. 3. They should have very limited battery power and should require human intervention to charge them. 4. They should have limited memory.
More like it's hardcoded to do something (maintain balance or whatever) without limits on how fast it can move to achieve the goal.
i.e. bad safety controls rather than malice
"Robot in Tianjin stumbles" there i fixed the Title.
I do not thing this thing can be cautious because it is a remote controlled car with 2 legs and everything the "AI" part is doing build down to keeping balance and locating the position that it hardcoded needs to grab.
Or in other words there is an operator, like with an RC car or a real car.
(Sorry, could not stop myself :-)
