Robot Crushes Contractor to Death at VW Motor Plant in Germany

[MadBurgerMaker]

fabled Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi, the Grass-Cutting Sword

?

[Syt]

 

[Razgovory]

Police sketch of the main suspect. 

If you read Stirling's sequels to Terminator 2 (much better than the third movie), then this is how it starts. Skynet killing people in industrial "accidents" to see how humans react to machines out of control.

I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Who is Stirling?

S.M. Stirling is a best selling science fiction author. Before he became really big he wrote some licensed sequels to Terminator 2

http://www.amazon.com/Infiltrator-T2-S-M-Stirling/dp/0380808161

Tim, you should be ashamed of yourself.  If I was your mother I would curtain your internet privileges for a week for posting that filth.

[crazy canuck]

Police sketch of the main suspect. 

I think we should all reflect on the fact that we have never seen a picture of JR, Minsky, Keynes.  And whatever other names this entity might use throughout the internet.  The names change but one thing that remains constant is an immediate defense of the coming robot age.

[Caliga]

I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

[Iormlund]

Iormlund staging the perfect murder? Or is he in Poland at the moment?

I have the perfect ali ... I mean, I'm on vacation in Spain, but I have indeed worked as a contractor in that plant (it's a few km from my house in Kassel).

I know nothing beyond what I read at the FT*, but my educated guess is this: He (and probably someone else) fucked up. Robot safety is fairly straightforward. You have a redundant circuit for emergency stops and another for perimeter protection. Either one of those shuts the power off and puts the brakes in automatically when the robots are in Auto mode.

For the robot to move while he was inside either:
a) Someone locked him in, then activated the station. Protocol asks for you to take measures to avoid this possibility (emergency buttons, anti-panic doors that always open from inside, physical locks to disable switches, etc). It would have to happen pretty fast because you can actually hear when a robot is online even if it is stopped (the servomotors make a whining sound).
b) Full-speed manual mode was set and he stood in the way (the robot always follows the same path). This requires someone to hold in his hand a 'dead man' switch (that will stop the motion immediately if you either press too hard or to softly).
c) Someone disabled safety measures (this requires one or several special passwords).

The latter is by far the most likely. It's fairly common to do without some safety features during commissioning to speed up things and cut costs, even if it should not be done. So someone fucked up, big time. He or she might do time for this.


* I had a laugh when I read the article in the FT. They way he phrased it it looks like we put fences around robots to keep them from smashing folks, when it is the other way around. We build fences around machines to keep humans out. They are the ones that cause all the trouble.

[Admiral Yi]

Another fine product from the Pearson family.

[Maximus]

We build fences around machines to keep humans out. They are the ones that cause all the trouble.

And therefore must be destroyed.

[KRonn]

Police sketch of the main suspect. 

If you read Stirling's sequels to Terminator 2 (much better than the third movie), then this is how it starts. Skynet killing people in industrial "accidents" to see how humans react to machines out of control.

The revolt of the machines has begun! And it's years earlier than predicted!

[Ideologue]

Police sketch of the main suspect. 

I think we should all reflect on the fact that we have never seen a picture of JR, Minsky, Keynes.  And whatever other names this entity might use throughout the internet.  The names change but one thing that remains constant is an immediate defense of the coming robot age.

[Ideologue]

We build fences around machines to keep humans out. They are the ones that cause all the trouble.

And therefore must be destroyed.

Why wouldn't we want to increase the universe's aggregate utility?

[The Larch]

Police sketch of the main suspect. 

I think we should all reflect on the fact that we have never seen a picture of JR, Minsky, Keynes.  And whatever other names this entity might use throughout the internet.  The names change but one thing that remains constant is an immediate defense of the coming robot age.

I have met him.

[Legbiter]

Police sketch of the main suspect. 

I think we should all reflect on the fact that we have never seen a picture of JR, Minsky, Keynes.  And whatever other names this entity might use throughout the internet.  The names change but one thing that remains constant is an immediate defense of the coming robot age.

I have met him.

Living tissue over metal endoskeleton, right?

[The Larch]

Police sketch of the main suspect. 

I think we should all reflect on the fact that we have never seen a picture of JR, Minsky, Keynes.  And whatever other names this entity might use throughout the internet.  The names change but one thing that remains constant is an immediate defense of the coming robot age.

I have met him.

Living tissue over metal endoskeleton, right?

He looked like a normal human being to me. I saw him eat and everything.

[The Brain]

He prefers the term artificial person himself.