A food delivery robot burst into flames—and now people have made a candlelight vigil for it
A food delivery robot caught fire on the campus of UC Berkeley on Friday, prompting an outpouring of grief online and leading students to set up a candlelit memorial to the “KiwiBot.”
What happened? The “KiwiBot,” one of over 100 robots that deliver food throughout Berkeley, suddenly burst into flames. The manufacturer blamed human error, saying someone had inserted a defective battery that had caused thermal runaway (the same issue that made Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 phones catch fire in 2016). It promised that new software will monitor the batteries inside its bots, to avoid a repeat.
The response: Students took to the “Overheard at UC Berkeley” Facebook page to pay tribute, describing the robot as a “hero” and a “legend,” according to the student paper. The video of the smoldering bot had nearly 100 comments just an hour after it was uploaded. Some students called for a moment of silence, and others even went as far as to create a candlelit memorial.
Umm … It might sound ridiculous (finals week can get to the best of us). But it’s just another example of humans empathizing with robots. We’ve held funerals for them. There was genuine outrage when a Canadian hitchhiking robot called hitchBOT was decapitated in Philadelphia. People even claimed a robot had “committed suicide” last year when it fell into a fountain (in fact, its algorithm just failed to detect an uneven surface). People were upset when Google released a video showing researchers kicking its robot dog. Some studies have found people are reluctant to “hurt” robots and that if we see one in “pain” it affects us in much the same way as if it were a human being.
Deep Dive
Artificial intelligence
Geoffrey Hinton tells us why he’s now scared of the tech he helped build
“I have suddenly switched my views on whether these things are going to be more intelligent than us.”
Deep learning pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has quit Google
Hinton will be speaking at EmTech Digital on Wednesday.
The future of generative AI is niche, not generalized
ChatGPT has sparked speculation about artificial general intelligence. But the next real phase of AI will be in specific domains and contexts.
Video: Geoffrey Hinton talks about the “existential threat” of AI
Watch Hinton speak with Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review’s senior editor for AI, at EmTech Digital.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.