Originally published at: Robot misidentifies its repairman as a cardboard box and kills him | Boing Boing
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Oof; not wonderful at all.
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Uh-oh. They’ve developed a counter.
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I suspect there is very little novelty in this situation. If you remove the word ‘Robot’ and replace it with ‘Machine’ then this sort of thing happens every day.
I once witnessed a colleague reach his whole right arm in through the jaws of a Sheet Metal Brake the size of a motorhome to adjust the spacing of the teeth. Had he (or anyone else) stepped on the pedal (right beside his foot) his whole arm would have been chopped off.
It wasn’t, but in the next universe over that guy has only one arm, because he was in too much of a rush to lock-out the machine and go around the back, in through the gate and adjust the teeth from the inside as per protocol.
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True, but I guess in this case the reliance of the robot’s vision system accurately interpreting the situation makes it a little bit different from some other industrial accidents where the machines are just running a fixed routine.
Obviously there should have been some kind of lockout procedure before the worker put himself within range of the robot whether or not it had a vision system.
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True.
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Ah, now it’s a race. Of a sort. Ugh.
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This tragedy is exactly what lockout/tag out is designed to prevent, and why OSHA rules exist.
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I once toured a 3M plant where they assembled the adhesive sensors for EKGs and such. I think the machine that made their version of band-aids was in the same area.
Both had enclosures with large signs on them that said: “If you are inside this area while the machine is operating, please hand in your badge.” IOW, you’re fired.
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I would hope that they will also post Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics in a conspicuous place.
What they REALLY need to post (and adhere to) is applicable lockout/tagout and safe maintenance procedures. Not the robot’s fault.
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“If you fall, you’re fired before you hit the ground.”
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As someone who deals with LOTO rules and procedures on a daily basis it continues to amaze me that the government has somehow made the 5000-lb machines moving themselves at high speed along public streets in cities like San Francisco exempt from these rules. They don’t even have emergency stop buttons or status indicator lights, for crying out loud.
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You do realise that those are just a clever plot device to write interesting stories, right?
And that to make it work, Asimov also had to come up with “positronic brains”?
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Let’s hold off on invoking the Robot Uprising. This was entirely on the technician, who should have had power disconnected and locked out while working on the bot.
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Bless. All the OSHA and maintenance lockout posts are heartwarming. 
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gah, so awful!
Always disconnect the power before attempting to repair.
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This is a great Futurama style joke.
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And that the whole point of those stories was that the Laws of Robotics won’t prevent unforeseen problems or issues that exist outside of the robot’s comprehension.
This is how Mrs Peas’ grandfather lost all of his fingers on one hand. Except it was a book binding machine.
My buddy who works in nuke told me a similar story from Los Alamos except the “knife” was a neutron and the “brake” was a particle accelerator. Dude watched his hand wither over the course of a few weeks before it just fell off. Better than the guy that put his head through the beam, though. 
Right? I wish I could hire the lot of ya.
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