Robot 'drowns' in fountain mishap

Posted on the BBC 0800 C time today 18th of July, 2017
 


 
Rescuers soon appeared to retrieve the fallen bot.
 
A security robot in Washington DC suffered a watery demise after falling into a fountain by an office building.

The stricken robot, made by Knightscope, was spotted by passers-by whose photos of the aftermath quickly went viral on social media.

For some, the incident seemed to sum up the state of 21st Century technology.

"We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots," wrote one worker from the building on Twitter.

"Steps are our best defence against the Robopocalypse," commented Peter Singer - author of Wired for War, a book about military robotics.

It is not the first accident involving Knightscope's patrolling robots, which are equipped with various instruments - including face-recognition systems, high-definition video capture, infrared and ultrasonic sensors.

Last year, a 16-month-old toddler was run over by one of the autonomous devices in a Silicon Valley shopping centre.

And earlier this year, a Californian man was arrested after attacking a Knightscope robot.
 
* first time I have read about a Robopocalypse. 

A video short on the "Steve" model # K5 suicide.
 
personal comment:  I question whether the robot did this on it's own.  That is me though.
 
[youtube]http://youtu.be/xrFpdLaB6uY[/youtube]

I smell foul play.  We need to call in Hercule Poirobot.

That's an expensive failure of the mapping software, it sounds like.  Unless someone actually pushed it in.  You'd think with all its sensors and cameras there would be plenty of evidence if foul play was involved!

The poor droid was so bored with his existence he simply wanted to end it all.

Frederick C. Wilt said:

The poor droid was so bored with his existence he simply wanted to end it all.

Click to expand...

He had a terrible pain in all the diodes down his left side ... ;-)

A classic tale - recently re-read the entire series. My wife doesn't understand the humor at all - thinks I may be a bit daft.

The water option with swimming firmware was a very expensive option.
 
 
Yeah, some shopper, sick of the thing in their wa,y gave it a kick at the right time.
....Plop, plop,   fizz, fizz.    Oh what a relief it is!.

The poor thing cannot read!
 
It was 98F in DC, kids wanted to jump in the fountain, but the sign "NO TRESPASSING IN THE FOUNTAIN" has stopped them. Evidently not the illiterate robot...