- All work and no play makes Jack a dull bot. All work and no play makes Jack a dull bot…
Ever since they became a thing, robots have been an employer’s dream. They don’t complain, they don’t ask for pay, and they don’t get tired.
Except that they apparently do. A recent incident in South Korea shows that even a robot can be overworked — to the point that it decides to end it all.
Last year, the city council of Gumi, located in central South Korea, hired the Robot Supervisor. The name is a bit misleading, though, since the trashcan-shaped machine was really more of an intern or an errand boy.
The robot worked nine-hour days carrying out a whole variety of office tasks. It delivered papers, scanned documents, and answered visitor questions, all the while running back and forth between different floors.
Yet, the endless monotony of its daily life seemingly got to the bot. When it was last seen in working order on June 26, the robot was circling in place on top of a stairwell, as if contemplating something.
Then it flung itself down the stairs, ending its mechanical life.
Did the robot suffer a fatal system glitch? Or did the overworked ghost in the machine decide it was time to clock out forever?
‘One of Us’
Even with the ongoing push for automation in all industries worldwide, South Korea has gone particularly gung-ho about robots. The Asian country has the highest rate of robot adoption in the world, with one industrial robot for every 10 human employees.
As such, it’s not surprising that the Gumi City Council decided it needed a robot, too. Although South Korea is renowned for producing some of the most advanced technology globally, the council decided to acquire its robot from abroad.
The company turned to Bear Robotics, which primarily manufactures robotic waiters for restaurants. The Gumi City Council’s machine, however, had to be capable of more than carrying papers around.
In August 2023, the Robot Supervisor (as the machine was titled) started at its new position.
Frankly, it was pretty impressive. It certainly could deliver documents, but it was also able to scan them.
The robot featured an interface that allowed users to interact with it. As such, the Robot Supervisor could answer simple questions for visitors (“Where do I go to file form D-274-5B?”) and was used to advertise the City Council’s services.
Human employees at the City Council certainly took a shine to their mechanical colleague. The bot even had its own security pass, just like everybody else.
“It was officially part of the mayor’s office, one of us. It worked diligently,” one council official told Channel News Asia.
Yet, one of the robot’s most impressive features was using the council building’s elevators. It knew how to call an elevator, wait for it to arrive, and then ride it to another floor to complete its tasks.
This allowed the bot to bypass stairs that it wasn’t able to climb or descend — a bit of ominous foreshadowing, in hindsight.
PRINT: ‘Goodbye, cruel world.’
Although it seemed to work happily all day long, something dark was brewing in the Robot Supervisor’s artificial mind. Perhaps all work and no play was making it a dull bot.
The robot punched in at 9 a.m. every day and would clock out nine hours later at 6 p.m.
Every. Single. Day.
Granted, those are the standard working hours for a South Korean office employee. But at least the bot’s human colleagues could go home to their families or grab a drink with friends after work.
Where did the bot go? Nowhere — it stayed always in the office.
It appears the stress finally broke something in the Robot Supervisor. Around 4 p.m. on June 26, the City Council’s human workers noticed something was off about their robotic friend.
Employees who saw the robot said it was “circling in one spot as if something was there” near a 6.5-foot-tall staircase.
And that was the last time anyone would see the robot alive. Soon afterward, the bot stepped over the top of the stairwell.
With no legs to walk on, it tumbled down the staircase. By the time it hit the bottom, the Robot Supervisor was dead.
Important Conversations
In all seriousness, it’s highly unlikely the robot consciously committed suicide. Yet, the incident has sparked a discussion about robot overwork and whether the machines belong in every workplace.
After all, the robot may have very well been overworked. It’s only a computer, and perhaps it was trying to process one too many things at once, resulting in a system error that killed it.
Whether that’s what happened is what the Gumi City Council is trying to figure out.
“Pieces have been collected and will be analyzed by [Bear Robotics],” the City Council said.
For now, the council has iced all future plans to acquire more robots, at least for now. At first, they want to know what really drove the Robot Supervisor to suicide and if introducing another such machine is safe.
Indeed, the whole thing has gotten people talking about whether every office and workplace is a suitable environment for robots. Malfunctioning machinery could introduce dangers nobody might’ve thought about.
For instance, what if somebody had been at the bottom of the stairs when the Robot Supervisor decided to jump to its death?