In South Korea, an investigation was opened after a robot, considered to be a municipal official at Gumi town hall, was found inert at the foot of the stairs. He would have thrown himself: local media are talking about the first suicide by a robot in the country.
The town hall of Gumi in South Korea is in mourning. On Thursday, June 20, a body was found, lethargic, at the foot of the stairs: that of a municipal civil servant robot. The latter would have thrown himself, of his own accord, two meters high around 4 p.m. According to witnesses at the scene, the android showed strange behavior shortly before the incident, turning in circles.
Local media are mourning the first “suicide” of a robot in the country, especially since the municipal police are taking the matter very seriously. Indeed, an investigation was opened to understand the circumstances of this fall.
a robot well integrated into the town hall
According to the municipal official, parts have been collected and will be analyzed by the company that designed the robot: Bear Robotics, a company based in the United States. In service for almost a year, the robot helped the city’s residents carry out various administrative tasks from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The android even had its own civil service card and, unlike other robots, it could ride in an elevator and navigate from one floor to another.
“He was officially part of the town hall, he was one of us” saddened another official. For the moment, the town hall does not intend to replace the robot. The media, for their part, wonder if the machine did not find itself the victim of too heavy a workload.
South Korea is known for being fond of robotics. The country has the highest density of robots in the world: there is one industrial android for every ten employees, according to the International Federation of Robots.
