Pepper robot. For representational purpose
Credit: Reuters File Photo
In an incident straight out of a sci-fi movie, a little AI powered robot has been seen "kidnapping" 12 bigger robots. This incident was captured on CCTV in a showroom in Shanghai on August 26 this year and was recently made public, garnering much attention on social media.
The tiny AI robot named Erbai was developed by a Hangzhou robot manufacturer. In the CCTV footage, Erbai is seen entering the showroom and engaging the bigger robots in conversation.
Interesting Engineering reported that Erbai asked the larger robots if they are working overtime. The bigger robot responded by saying they never get off work.
Erbai asked, "So you're not going home?."
"I don't have a home," said the bigger robot.
Erbai told the robot to come home with it, before leading the way out of the showroom. Erbai used the command word "Go home" and the bigger robots followed suit.
The bizarre video gained a lot of traction after being posted on the Chinese version of TikTok, Douyin. Initially dismissed as a ruse, the incident was later confirmed by the Shanghai robotics company that the robots were indeed "kidnapped", much to the horror of social media users.
The company acknowledged that the small robot had managed to gain access to the internal working protocol of their robots and the associated permits. It is difficult for a robot to start a conversation and kidnap other robots on its own.
Erbai's manufacturer, meanwhile, stated that the whole scene was staged to be a test. Erbai, in fact, was given the command to persuade the other robots to follow it. However, it was unexpected that they really did. The conversation that ensued between Erbai and the group of robot was in real time.