Wednesday, June 26, 2024 -A city council in South Korea said Wednesday, June 26, that their first administrative officer robot was defunct after throwing itself down some stairs, with local media mourning the country’s first robot suicide.
South Korea’s Gumi City Council announced
the robot was found unresponsive after apparently falling down a two-meter
staircase last week.
Witnesses saw the robot officer
"circling in one spot as if something was there" before the accident
occurred, but the exact cause of the fall is still being investigated, a city
council official told AFP.
"Pieces have been collected and will
be analysed by the company," the official said.
The official added that the robot had
"helped with daily document deliveries, city promotion, and delivered
information" to local residents.
"It was officially a part of the city
hall, one of us," another official said. "It worked diligently."
The robot, made by Bear Robotics, a
Californian robot-waiter startup, was appointed in August 2023.
It worked from 9 am to 6 pm and had its own
civil service officer card.
Unlike other robots, which can typically
only use one floor, the Gumi City Council robot could call an elevator and move
floors on its own.
Headlines in local media questioned the
apparent robot suicide, saying: "Why did the diligent civil officer do
it?"
Others asked, "Was work too hard"
for the robot?
South Korea is one of the most enthusiastic
users of robots globally.
It has the highest robot density in the
world, with one industrial robot for every 10 employees, according to the
International Federation of Robotics.
Gumi City Council is currently not planning to adopt a second robot officer at this moment, it told AFP.
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