A seemingly angry robot has physically attacked a woman who seemed to be cheering during a Chinese festival.
A video of the incident shared on Reddit on 19 February shows the robot which seems to be acting as a protocol attempting to headbutt the woman before it was held back by some people standing by.
A weird incident
Humanoid robots have become popular recently, and are mainly used to support humans with tasks that do not require reasoning since they are not independent.
Although there are robots that are designed to learn and become more competent, it is unlikely that they were designed with emotions.
This incident therefore is strange and unexpected, leading to several questions about the extent to which robots can evolve.
Some people believe the robot may have been controlled remotely to do what it did.
“OP thinks this is a “malfunction”. In my opinion, think the robot is doing exactly what it was programmed to do for the purposes of crowd control which has androids being assistants in mass crowd events. The programmers controlling the robots actions is basically testing its parameters for informational data. Basically, given this event, and the woman’s arms over stretching the peripheral boundaries of the fence: Was this action taken by the robot acceptable or not….kinda of stuff. Or is someone sitting somewhere, controlling the actions of the robot.”
Others however think the robot tripped and was trying to regain balance, which is unlikely as robots of this nature are made with precise movements and actions.
Raising more concerns around AI
There have been fears and apprehensions around Ai from when the technology started coming up. For the skeptics, the technology could lead to robots replacing humans at work, but it could be much worse.
Some commentators on Reddit say the incident could be pointing to the potential of robots as military agents such as Terminator in the movies.
Meanwhile, tech giants like Nvidia are betting big on humanoid robots, as well as Meta and many others.
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