Footage has captured the moment a small ‘Wall-E’ sized robot convinced other robots to wake up and leave their job.
It seems the revolution – the robot revolution, at least – has been televised for the first time, on the CCTV circuit of a Shanghai showroom.
The company behind the robot has claimed their bots were ‘kidnapped’ by the smaller robot, named Erbai.
Erbai captured entering the room and asking others, ‘Are you working overtime?’
‘I never get off work,’ one robot replied.
It then went on to ask if the other robots would like to come ‘home’ with it, at which point dozens of others bots left the showroom, trailing behind Erbai.
The incident happened in August, but this is the first time the footage has been made public.
Erbai is powered by artificial intelligence, and was told by its operators to ask the other robots to leave the room as a ‘test’, it was revealed.
The company behind the bots, Hangzhou, was able to get permissions for its robot to ‘abduct’ the others for the experiment.
Hangzhou has stressed that it is still ‘impossible’ for a robot to start such a conversation and convince others to do something without the correct permissions.
It’s the latest instance of how dangerous AI technology can be if not properly monitored.
AI robots are androids which use systems with artificial intelligence to move around and work more efficiently.
This may range from machine learning with algorithms to sensors which gather data about their surroundings and help them move around with ease.
By using AI to process visual and audio cues, the machines can learn more about their environment and respond in a more ‘natural’ way.
Earlier this month, a mum says her son was provoked into killing himself by an AI chatbot that he fell in love with online.
Sewell Setzer III, who was 14 from Orlando, Florida, befriended an AI character named after Daenerys Targaryen on the role-playing app Character.AI.
His mum, Megan Garcia, has now filed a lawsuit against the company over her son’s death.
Just before Sewell died, the chatbot texted him to ‘please come home’.
Sewell knew Dany was not a real person because of a message displayed above all their chats, reminding him that ‘everything Characters say is made up!’.
But despite this he told the chatbot how he hated himself and felt empty and exhausted, the New York Times reported.
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