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Comment by pj_mukh | Hacker News Reader

Why does this article read like the robot actually got angry at a spectator. It did not, it does not have that capacity.

This was definitely a glaring safety issue and the company should review all its failure modes that show up in public but an ”emotional” response this was not.

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I understand the concern but I feel like it was on the right side of the line. The article says:

>displayed aggressive behavior

>swinging its arms in a manner described as aggressive and violent, similar to human behavior

I can understand aggressive and violent as descriptions of behavior that don't necessarily (on charitable interpretation) imply an internal emotional state.

Aggressive is totally the wrong word. Malfunction is the right word. So it's really waaay off the line.

'described as aggressive and violent'. It is the right word, as it was what the spectators experienced. How the malfunction was perceived is kind of what the article is discussing. Things malfunction all the time. Malfunctioning in a way that scares people, potentially causing stampedes and death and trauma in extreme cases, is best avoided, even if the malfunction itself was harmless.

If I trip and fall and throw an arm out to catch myself instead of face planting, and my arm accidentally hits someone, this is not aggressive behavior. This is exactly what happens in the video, the robot lost balance and was jerkily trying to correct itself. This article is terrible clickbait trying to stir controversy

We could claim it was self-preservation or collision avoidance routine, perhaps mistakenly triggered by bad sensor input and/or coding error. However, that's also the reasons for which a human could get "angry at the spectator" and display the same behavior.

Obviously there's a difference, but similarities are uncanny.

That's the other side of anthropomorphic robots: they get anthropomorphic attributes associated with them. A 4 axis robot arm hitting a worker is a machinery with bad safety settings and/or a worker who ignored them. A humanoid robot hitting a worker looks a lot like another worker hitting a worker.

Also take into account that these humanoid robots are specifically designed to integrate into spaces which usually were not used by robots before, which immediately means more potential contact between them and non-trained personnel, even civilians.

I feel we are quickly approaching ST:TNG "The Measure of a Man" territory here: At what point does a machine stop being a machine and becomes a being, a strange, technological being, sure, but a being nonetheless. After all, there's a good argument to be made that we are essentially biological robots.

The AI emotion discussion is interesting, but at the end of the day, does it matter? The question is, is it safe? And if it's not safe, how unsafe is it?

Right. We don’t need to debate whether a loose tiger is angry, confused, or hungry in order to know that they’re not safe around people. We can leave understanding the contents of its mind to the philosophers.

What is very clear from the video is that the robots are an order of magnitude heavier and stronger than a person. That’s all you really need to know.

It isn't the AI emotion. It is how the malfunction is perceived. If something is perceived as aggressive, or unsafe, then it is unsafe as it causes panic and trauma. And a very real chance of death in crowds.

It's important to note that a robot gone rogue is still a killer robot even if the robot doesn't hate you.

We antropomorphize animals all the time, it won't be any different with robots.

When one wants to be picky, we can't be certain about other people's emotions either. A psychopath may not feel any anger when hitting you, or he might be feeling something very different from what a normal person would label "anger".

"As you can see from the smile on the robot's, let's call it face, your honor, this was clearly a friendly gesture."

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