World’s first ‘robot suicide’ in deadly fall, workload stress speculated

A robot in South Korea took a tragic fall down a two-meter staircase, and people are speculating that it is the world’s first “robot suicide.” This robot, nicknamed the “Robot Supervisor,” had been working hard since August 2023, doing things like delivering documents and promoting the city.

“It was like part of our team,” said one city official according to agencies.

Before the fall, witnesses saw the robot acting oddly, circling around like something was wrong. Some experts think it might have been stressed out by its workload or had a glitch.

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Now, investigators are trying to figure out exactly what happened. Parts from the scene are being looked at by Bear Robotics, the company that produced the robot in California.

We spoke to Aliriza Abdul Gafoor, Chairman & CEO of Aliriza Group, that pioneers robotic technology in UAE. He did not agree with the suicide theory and thought it did not have a basis. “There’s no proof that robots, as they are right now, can feel emotions like sadness or want to harm themselves. The circling around and falling down the stairs could just be technical problems,” he explained.

He further added, “It’s probably just a way for the company that made the robot to get people interested in what they’re doing. It’s a clever way to make people curious about their robots, but it doesn’t mean the robots are starting to think deeply or have feelings like humans.”

Whether the speculations have a basis or not, people all over South Korea are shocked and curious about why this hard-working robot would do something like this. It has sparked a big debate on social media about robots and whether they can feel things like stress or sadness to commit suicide.

This incident also raises bigger questions about how robots fit into our lives and the ethics of using AI. South Korea leads the world in using robots, so they’re having some tough discussions about what this means for the future of technology and society.