Robot Attacks Aren’t Just for Comedy
Balsta, Sweden (wikimedia)
This is mostly being played as a joke around the intertubes but obviously deadly accidents are a real issue in any industrial setting:
A Swedish company has been fined 25,000 kronor ($3,000) after a malfunctioning robot attacked and almost killed one of its workers at a factory north of Stockholm. Public prosecutor Leif Johansson mulled pressing charges against the firm but eventually opted to settle for a fine. “I’ve never heard of a robot attacking somebody like this,” he told news agency TT.
Notwithstanding Johansson’s lack of previous knowledge, but this sort of thing has happened before. Japan, where they have the most robots, is the world’s leader in robot-related accidents and even former Prime Minister Koizumi has been attacked. But this has happened in the United States and U.K. as well. On net, however, the evidence is pretty clear that the advance of robotics is making industrial accidents less common rather than more common if only because it involves fewer human beings doing work in dangerous industrial settings.
33 Responses to “Robot Attacks Aren’t Just for Comedy”
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July 29th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I don’t know that I’d drop the criminal investigation so quickly. Did they check to see if he owed the robot money? Were they seen arguing? Was the robot having an affair with his wife?
July 29th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Liberals probably hate robots because they harm unions. Don’t be surprised if you see legislation limited use of automation at some point.
After all, how is a guy who makes a living turning a wrench on an assembly line supposed to compete with a robot?
BTW, since when did “good jobs” become political code for unionized manufacturing jobs?
July 29th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Matt, check out this book. It’s a hoot!
http://www.amazon.com/How-Survive-Robot-Uprising-Defending/dp/1582345929/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248884991&sr=1-1
July 29th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
MPC, when they became the ones that paid enough to actually survive. Well, the only jobs that paid well enough without a college degree (and increasingly, even with one).
Basically, when scum like you ruthlessly attacked every union they could find, negating the upward pressure on wages that unions caused. this, coupled with a refusal to crackdown on employers of illegal aliens and the completely unrealistic levels of college tuition, ensured that the only remaining jobs that could be called ‘good’ went to those few people who got union jobs. Which, of course, increased nepotism and the politicization of said jobs.
July 29th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Intersection of robot attack/health care reform debate here:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/2340/saturday-night-live-old-glory
July 29th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
The word “attack” implies intention or motive. I don’t think we’re anywhere near needing to fear robots with grudges or vengeance in their souls. Roombas don’t attack cats, they fail to avoid them.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Most robots don’t even have work authorization paperwork. We need to build a Faraday cage around the United States, because they do not subscribe to our Judeo-Christian values.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
1) First comment, and Njorl wins the thread!
2) I would rogram my Roomba to attack cats.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Program.
MattY’s bad typing is a bad influence.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Clearly the solution is to organize the robots. No one’s going to cross a picket line of violent robots.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
MPC: I think it really depends on the sort of liberal. There’s a sort of technocratic/populist axis in progressivism (and in most other political philosophies, ultimately). Populists don’t like robots for the reason you say, (Robots are the new Mexicans) but I think the more technocratic sort are more willing to appreciate them (I do, anyway) as long as effort is made to make sure that humans are able to find replacement work until the glorious robot utopia ends the need for sentient beings to work.
And although that last bit is probably a bit overoptimistic and might cause Hector’s head to explode with rage when he sees it, I do think it’s a basically plausible direction to aim for.
July 29th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
In order for America’s first robot president to get elected, he will first have to decry the plague of robot-on-robot violence (as well as the problem of too many absentee robot dads).
July 29th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I was thinking “If only they had Old Glory Insurance,” but Tom at 5. beat me to it.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I think it is important that we establish a precedent of summary retirement in these instances right now. Incidents will only increase from here.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
tom: Old Glory Robot Insurance is life insurance, not health insurance.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
When robots start stealing my lunch from the fridge at work then I’ll begin to worry about Cybernet becoming operational.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
MPC Says:
Liberals probably hate robots because they harm unions.
MPC, where are you getting your information? We liberals don’t NEED a reason to hate. We hate everything! Mom, apple pie, ‘Merika… all of it.
We even hate things that don’t exist; GOD, Matt’s spell checker, compassionate conservatism…
Luckily I’m a progressive, so I welcome our new, violent robot overlords.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Fixed:
July 29th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Metal lathes and milling machines have been “attacking” users for years, even in high schools! These monsters must be stopped. Think of the children!
In other news, Dihydrogen oxide is the leading cause of climate change.
July 29th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
In other news, Dihydrogen Oxide is the leading cause of climate change.
No, Dihydrogen Oxide is the leading cause of drowning. The leading cause of climate change continues to be the asymmetric evolution of the universe.
July 29th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Follow me if you want to live. The future is what we make of it.
July 29th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Realistically, I’d say the biggest constitutional barrier for a robot president would be the age requirement. I think you can reasonably argue a sentient robot is a person, and that they are entitled to be deemed natural born citizens, but having to wait thirty-five years after manufacture to be president is a real pain, and that would probably require some sort of constitutional amendment to deal with. Robots would not develop the same way humans do, and we would not want to be stuck with President Altair.
July 29th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Fixed:
In order for America’s first robot President to elected, he will have to convert to Christianity.
July 29th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Re: And although that last bit is probably a bit overoptimistic and might cause Hector’s head to explode with rage when he sees it, I do think it’s a basically plausible direction to aim for.
Just another reminder that Mr. Anonymous and I inhabit different moral (or in his case immoral) universes. Mr. Anonymous, care to explain just why you think a world without labor would be a good thing?
BTW, everytime I hear the phrase ’sentient beings’ I want to throw up.
A healthy society would be an agrarian, peasant utopia in which people worked very hard, in which pot, porn and playstation hedonistic lifestyle was suppressed, and in which the human virtues were perfected through everlasting struggle of good against evil.
July 29th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
A healthy society would be hunter-gatherer, the lifestyle for which typically leaves plenty of time for idle curiosity and social interaction.
If we gotta go agrarian, we’re gonna need the pot to unwind, otherwise we’ll probably crack the head of any sanctimonious jerk who starts harassing us about human virtue.
July 29th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
At a G.M. plant several workers turned off a large stamping press to do repairs. Once inside, the stamping press activates itself and crushes the workers to death. Stamping press decides to attack the workers and crush them to death or workers make fatal mistake in wrongly assuming machine was turned off? You decide. Avionics software in jet malfunctions and the plane crashes killing all aboard. Avionic software becomes sentient and decides to commit suicide and take all aboard the plane with it or there was software programming error? You decide.
July 29th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
If interested, I posted a related piece on my blog this morning.
July 29th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Fixed:
In order for America’s first robot President to elected, he will have to convert from 220v to 110v.
(And kudos to both of those previous fixes. Nicely done.)
July 29th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Hector:
Will that be a Stalin-style agrarian peasant utopia or a Pol Pot-style agrarian peasant utopia? I need to figure out if I’m going to be executed for owning property or for going to college.
July 30th, 2009 at 12:43 am
“Man Almost Killed by Machine”
This headline does not sell newspapers!
Journalists used to take headline writing
seriously, but not anymore.
In general the idea is “pump and dump”. You pump upt the claims and then dump the readers into an uninteresting story.
July 30th, 2009 at 2:00 am
John Connor: Get your goddamn phrasing RIGHT!
It’s “Come with me if you want to live” and “There is no fate but what we make.”
Jesus, Cameron is coming over to kick your ass!
Meanwhile, check out the movie “Runaway” with Tom Selleck and a brilliant Gene Simmons, for how runaway robots will be handled, i.e., incompetently like most police operations.
Runaway (1984)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE5czM5eisU&feature=related
July 31st, 2009 at 3:40 am
thank you very