This robot is designed to keep people safe, but it fell in a fountain and couldn't get up
The Knightscope K5 security robot's job is to be on the look out for crime.
It might also want to keep an eye on where it's going.
Officer workers at the Georgetown Harbour office and retail space in Washington D.C. tweeted photos on Monday of the building's K5 marooned and toppled over in a water fountain. The K5 is limbless, so it couldn't lift itself out of the fountain, and good old fashioned humanity had to come to the rescue.
It was perfect fodder for comedic tweets:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/887025375754166272
Our D.C. office building got a security robot. It drowned itself.
We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots. pic.twitter.com/rGLTAWZMjn
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/887036915064729601
wow i can't believe they baptized the robot pic.twitter.com/pqYjRCrzHE
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/887040009974366208
Arya Stark: When people ask you what happened here, tell them the North remembers. Tell them winter came for your security robot. pic.twitter.com/ZEz58gT4V7
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/887040723484377088
Thanks to @ComfortablySmug for the close-up. I call this "Dramatic Robot" pic.twitter.com/E7XpBJfoTd
The K5 is designed to act as an extra set of eyes for law-enforcement and security services in public spaces.
It's unclear how this particular K5 ended up in the fountain, which has steps leading into the water. It's possible it was the result of a prank. Earlier in April, a hardware engineer reportedly knocked over a 300-pound K5 robot, resulting in the engineer's arrest.
We might laugh today at the shortcomings of robots, but there will surely be a day when they won't be so easily toppled.
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