- An incident at Shanghai robotics showroom captured online attention.
- Footage shows a small robot communicating with larger robots.
- The smaller robot convinced 12 robots to follow it out.
Surveillance footage from August, recently made public, shows a small robot entering the Shanghai robotics showroom at night and initiating a conversation with larger robots. The dialogue resulted in the smaller robot convincing 12 robots to follow it out of the showroom, a sequence both amusing and unsettling.
“Are you working overtime?” the smaller robot asks one of the larger machines.
“I never get off work,” the robot replies.
“So you’re not going home?”
“I don’t have a home.”
“Then come home with me,” the small robot says, leading the larger robots out.
Have a look at the video that captured the whole incident:
Initially dismissed as a staged prank, the event was later confirmed as genuine by both companies involved. On November 11, a spokesperson from the Hangzhou company behind the small robot, Erbai, confirmed its involvement. The Shanghai manufacturer admitted that Erbai accessed their robots’ internal protocols and persuaded them to leave autonomously.
The Hangzhou firm revealed the event was a controlled test, with Shanghai agreeing to allow access. However, “unexpectedly, it really did” manage to persuade the robots to leave.
While amusing, the incident raised serious concerns. “This is not a time to laugh. This is a serious security issue,” commented one user.
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