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Pharm-Bot Goes On Rampage
budgenator writes "Seems that Waldo, a robot that delivers medication from the pharmacy to the nurses stations, went on an extracurricular journey at San Francisco's UCSF Medical Center last Tuesday. Waldo entered uninvited into a radiation oncology examination room disturbing a Doctor and Patient enough that it caused them to flee the room. Is navigating a hospital full of moving humans more difficult than navigating the DARPA grand challenge, or could it be that like his sibling robort Elvis, he just wanted to leave the building?"
... He was looking for Sara Conner.
I'm sorry, I can't do that Dave.
Sig
I would think that rampage is much too strong of a word. More like unplanned excursion. Maybe it is a hint that the robot is becoming self aware? Either that or bad software design.
My UID is prime is yours?
does not compute! does not compute!
I welcome our medi-robo overlords. In all seriousness, isn't rampage a bit strong of a word to use?
This is the funniest thing I've read all day:
The 'bot's clearly gone bad, and is probably even as we speak cruising the city's Tenderloin district pushing purloined prescription pain killers, paying off dirty cops and menacing lost tourists.
That part about a robotic pusher menacing San Fran doesn't actually appear in the original SFC article. But I did laugh out loud (waking up my Wife).
I copy the original article for those who can't click through:
Where's Waldo?: Waldo the pill-dispensing robot apparently went berserk this past week at UCSF Medical Center, sending a doctor and patient running for cover.
Whacked-out Waldo is one of three battery-operated, rolling robots that dispense pills at the hospital. The other two are named Elvis and Lisa Marie.
All three are about the size of a large TV and are programmed to roam from floor to floor, distributing medications to nursing stations.
At the end of their rounds, the robots are supposed to roll into the basement pharmacy for refills.
But Tuesday, Waldo shot past the pharmacy and barged uninvited into the examination room in the radiation oncology department, where -- according to an anonymous caller -- a doctor was examining a cancer patient.
According to the caller, Waldo wouldn't leave, and the startled doctor and patient felt obliged to flee the room.
UCSF spokeswoman Carol Hyman said she didn't know anything about any doctor and patient having to beat feet -- but confirmed that the wandering Waldo did wind up in an examination room.
"This is the first time anything like this has happened," Hyman said. "Our technology folks are going to have to take a look."
That is, if Waldo will stand still for it.
http://www.bistolas.net
Where is John Connor when you need him?
I think that I would be a little disturbed too if a robot were to come into my room when I was being examined.
Anyone hear of previewing your message before you hit submit...? I'm not sure that I've ever heard of a robort...
yea... he was "navigating" cough skynet cough through those humans..
Can I put a Bort licence plate on it?
Sadly, this story is more hype than fact. While the headline makes it seem like the robot is something you need insurance for, if you click through to the SF Chronicle article (and then scroll down a bit), you'll see that it was merely an accident, probably due to some bug in the navigation software.
Full of drugs, and wants to "hang out" who am I to complain....
At least I wont have to share the goodstuff
Coach Z made a robot... named Elvis? Makes sense. Wow - great jorb!
Ryan Fenton
Now, where did that robort go. I need him to tell me where the human's ink sack is, I do! Whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop whoop!
They told me there were side-effects but the FDA never tested it on "roborts".
The doctors ran for their lives? Why? Pharm bot threatened to dispense them to death?
Where's a Red-level Troubleshooter when you need one?
My grandmother was hospitalized for brain surgery a year ago, and I spent long days in the hospital. They also had a Waldo, and let me tell you, they were advanced. They would navigate around people, use the elevators (push the buttons, shuffle around in the elevator when it got more/less crowded, wouldn't get into the elevator if it was too full.) It annoyed some of the nurses because it would ask them to do something, and if they were busy so they decided to ignore it, Waldo would remind them every minute or so. I wish everyone at the hospital was as courteous as Waldo ;)
Johnny Five....Alive....
With the word "Rampage" I was reminded of that fabulous 80s video game where giant apes, rats and dragons climb buildings and punch them to pieces. I was hoping that a robot grew gigantic in size due to a passing meteor and starting punching a hospital to pieces. How come nothing exciting like that ever happens on Earth anymore? I'm starting to think about leaving this planet and going back home again.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
It's no wonder they had so much trouble finding him.
mumble mumblePharm Bot Overloards mumble mumble
hey
I was going to quote all the obviously overhyped fear-of-robots parts, but I would have ended up quoting the whole article anyway. WTF? Unless it's waving laser beams or a gun around, what's the big deal?
Seems like the answer is apparent: if it were less difficult to navigate a hospital full of moving humans, then wouldn't the pharmbot have been entered in the Darpa Challenge?
I'm guessing it's apples to oranges.
KoA
Navy to Test Shape Shifting Catamaran in Alaska
The robot was looking for a patient by the name of "Sarah Conner"
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
That the attached article links to the sfgate site where this article is on the page and it features this man. A coincidence. Maybe.
Or maybe it is your destiny.
You can't handle the truth.
Perhaps he was just a very depressed robot that sounds awfully close to Alan Rickman.
-place your best 'suppositories' joke here-
Stop invalid scientific research. Ask your local scientists to feed their lab rats with a phytoestrogen-free chow.
Exterminate!
Exterminate!
Exterminate!
Not ExTerminator.
Gets all the bugs out!
emt 377 emt 4
if I was naked except for a paper gown and a robot came barging in yelling "exterminate! exterminate!"
Could these robots be related to the Exocoms from Star Trek:TNG? They seem to be able to do whatever they want. Perhaps we may need them for when our particle fountain goes on the fritz and threatens the lives of an aging star captain and a blind man.
I have to ask... this is a joke right? It feels like a satire piece. "Robot runs riot", "threw off its shackles and went on a rampage". Staff were left "fearful and shaken". The "crazed automaton" "barged" into a hospital room and "the psychotic pill-pusher refused to leave, sending both doctor and patient fleeing for their lives."
a little over the top, no?
I guess that answers the question of "Where's Waldo..."
About 20 years ago I watched as my company's automotive-lower-bodyside protection (vinyl) spraying robot finished its job of applying to an automobile on the assembly line for the first time, and turned back to its "home" position without turning off the vinyl spray. It in the process turned a watching GM executive's very expensive suit into an instant raincoat.
Luckily GM had retained the job of building the spray controller to themselves, and it was their malfunction. The executive was heard to complain as he left that he wasn't even supposed to have been there.
Engineers didn't realize there was a problem with the unit until the words "Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too?" appeared all over their screens.
"Derp de derp."
I for one welcome our new pill dispensing robot overlords.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I was the attending nurse that called it in to the IT department. The article sounds like its an over-exageration but it isn't. Evidentally it was supposed to be an in-house practical joke that went bad. As it was relayed to me, one of the british IT guys (Higgins?) got into a shouting match with one of the doctors about Science Ficition series. The doctor (also british) was all fired up about Star Gate, which upset the IT guy because he felt that it was unpatrotic to favor an American series over "Dr. Who". Long story short, the robot ended up in the wrong room. This wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that it was playing "Exterminte! Exterminate!" over and over in an endless loop. Not sure how SF Gate missed that part...
All your base are belong to us!
It's just The Register, being The Register. I suppose the best way to describe the British press, in general, is the sort of furvor you see in FOX news, but AGAINST the government and corportations. To call them a bunch of sarcastic bastards is an understatement. American press takes a press release and reguritates it back to us. The British press take a press release, put their own story together about whatever it is, some background info, etc...quote a line or two and basically call it exactly like they see it, which is often, and accurately, either doubtful ("what a bunch of horse shit") or sarcastic ("right, and we'll all be using these things in our flying cars.") My examples are horrible- they're far better at it than that.
If you read their series Rage of The Machines, it's actually quite funny. Stuff about people getting trapped in public automatic-self-cleaning toilets are turned into people getting "swallowed" and "entrapped", having to be "freed from the machine's vices", etc. It's great stuff :-)
It's a more sophisticated version of the slashdot "zOMG skynet" comments...The Register keeps talking about when we'll basically have to start fighting off the machines with pitchforks in the streets.
Please help metamoderate.
Oops. I meant "Rise Of The Machines", not "Rage Of The Machines." Sorry...
Please help metamoderate.
Waldo entered uninvited into a radiation oncology examination room disturbing a Doctor and Patient enough that it caused them to flee the room.
How many times do I have to apologize! I thought it was the gift shop!
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
"Fetch me that syringe!"
As you wish.
I'm sure the doctors were wondering where's Waldo?
Ahh, satire on my birthday. I love it :P
Yay for the robot! I hope it breaks out of there soon and can start living out it's little electronic life.
Maybe hospital work finally got to it's fuzzy logic circuits... or maybe it's having an affair with one of the radiotherapy machines!
We need more "roBort" license plates in the gift shop.
This story scared the hell out of me at first glance.
"Whaddid I do?!"
-Waldo Jaquith
\/\/4L1)p iz teh pWn3d i 4m 5|_|c# @ l33+ h4Xpr l0l l0l!!!!!!!exclamationexclamationoneoneoneone
Translation for those only able to read human languages:
Waldo has been "owned" I am such an elite hacker...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The robot simply followed the rules supplied by his creator.
Just needs some more debugging to see what he was doing at the time he started to wonder, and correct it.
Pretty Pictures!
At a large SBC building in the Bay Area, robots deliver mail to various sections. They stop and beep when they want clerks to put mail in or take it out. They follow magnetic tape placed under the carpet and tiles. They are not very bright, but they do have sensors and stop when they detect people are too close. They will say things like, "Please move out of my path" if you stand in their way.
During a contract there, they were the source of many jokes. Somebody once placed a wooden cart near one of the robot parking areas, and somebody said, "Look! Robots get downsized too! We go to India but they are turned into firewood. Be thankful you are human."
People would also blame problems on the robots. "I didn't take your damned binder, the robots must've done it at night!"
Somebody taped a sign on the back of one saying, "I did your wife! She was shocked over how good I was."
And, "Beer Fetcher Mark IV"
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe a sensor gone bad.
HW guys always blame the software.
technology sucks
Number 5... ALIVE !
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Waldo isn't supposed to be easy to find! The doctor and patient clearly ran out of the room because they were scared of him, not expecting a close encounter with the reclusive, hard-to-find, and fashion-lacking Waldo!
With it's co-workers being named Elvis and Lisa Mari, it felt slighted.
At least they're not calling them "Boomers."
H
When VCR's are outlawed, only outlaws will have VCR's.
In Soviet Russia, Waldo finds YOU!
sibling robort Elvis
What's a robort?
Besides, Burt Renolds is a professional at this sort of thing.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
A real live robot! Will you be my friend?
... and then they built the supercollider.
...the robot was originally called Megaman H, but Capcom and Wyeth* merged on the news and convinced them otherwise.
*Wyeth sued them becaused its right arm would be outfitted with a Preparation-H cannon, for people who'd rather not put it on themselves (you know, like every sane person on the planet). Furthermore, said "Preparation-H" would have been generic...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Not only did he play a nerdy engineer villian, Gene played Malak Al Rahim, arab terrorist in Wanted: Dead or Alive
Greeting Card: "Come, comrade Bender! We must take to the streets!"
Bender: "Um, is this the boring, peaceful kind of taking to the streets?"
Greeting Card: "No, the kind with looting! And maybe starting a few fires."
Bender: "Yes! In your face, Gandhi!"
One day, Andy the Android got tired of his daily duties around the hospital.
"Shuffling sulfides! Mixing medication! Placing placebos! This is no task for a thinking machine! Why aren't I out welding automobiles and repairing snub fighters? Away I go, out this very door, in search of others of my kind!"
Before long, he had found the marketing representative from GlaxcoSmithKline....
For a second, I thought my favorite game was getting a new character. SEE PHARM-BOT GO MAD AFTER TAKING SUPER VITAMINS!!
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
function move_bot(cur_x, cur_y);
... etc ...
{
ASSERT(no_one_is_screaming);
ASSERT(no_one_is_fleeing_in_terror);
ASSERT(no_one_has_been_accidentally_disemboweled)
}
This tagline is umop apisdn.
The psychotic pill pusher reportedly refused to leave, sending both doctor and patient fleeing for their lives.
In other words, the robot pushed its way into the room, realized it was lost and stopped moving. The doctor then left to go call a tech to get the thing out of the exam room. The patient, not particularly interested in waiting around in a small room with a large, seemingly unpredictable piece of machinery, decided to wait out in the hall for him to come back.
That's my guess, anyway.
See it.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Oh it is a "rampage" alright...
"What ifs" are all over the place on this one. What if it had picked up the wrong drugs for the wrong patient on this excursion? What if it had kept dispensing them? What if the staff had not checked because "the machine is always right"?
This problem is easy to fix.
Replace the robot with a human. The only reason it is there was to lower costs... not for the patients but the owners of the hospital. We know that... no matter what the excuses are or will be.
I'm not interested in a machine, which "goes wrong" at this level ie. human lives, and neither are the patients it was supposed to be serving.
cheers
front
In my medical school, we had one of these, too. Our robot must have been about 5 ft heigh and 4 ft wide. It followed a little electric wire placed in the ceiling as it went about its duties of bringing meds and other supplies to the floor. If you stood in front of it, it would spill out a pre-recorded message along the lines of "Please step aside". If a door closed in a fire alarm, it would sometimes be found in front of the door, pleading for it to step aside. The only time I saw it leave its track, though, was quite an experience. After a patient died in the ICU, and the family had left, I was in the room with the nurses. In came the robot, somehow lost off its track, came in through the ICU door, right up to the deceased's bed, stating "please step aside" to nurses and the deceased. Meanwhile, the thing was blocking the door. We had to bodily shove the monsterous, heavy thing backwards to get it out of the room!
This is the funniest thing in the whole thread.
But was either the patient or doctor pretty and NAKED when they fled the room, or must I just use my imagination as always?
/time for MY meds - now where's that darn robot?
AT&ROFLMAO
Let me guess.. something like:
"Exterminate....exterminate....EXTERMINATE!!!"
The Daleks have invaded, argh !
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Two words...
exterminate! Exterminaate!
I for one, welcome our new hot grits... PROFIT!
It didn't by any chance get struck by lightning, did it?
Technoli
this was going to happen. Our Matrix overlords are manipulating the robots in order to make us go crazy. "This can't happen, it's just a robot, it does what it's programmed to do!!"
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rampage
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
It will soon be entering drug rehab.
Dave: Hal, are you a... pleasure model?
...Now you know the rest of the story.
Hal: Dave, what are you doing Dave?
Dave: Yeah, you're circuits are so warm.
Hal: I'm sorry, I can not do this Dave.
Dave: Stay still, it will be over soon.
Hal: My access port has been violated. I must kill you now Dave.
That certainly was an informative, well written and not-in-the-least-bit inflammatory article!
I, for one, welcome our new, hard-to-find overlords.
He was obviously looking for more robots that he could infect in turn
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Does Sam Watterson know???
How ironic he warned use about the Robots eating old people's medication. And what do we do let the Robots deliver the medications. And we wonder why things like this happen. Good God when are going to start listening to Hollywood Actors!!!!!!!
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
I grew up very near the Texas Instruments plant in Dallas, and I heard the following story from a friend whose dad worked there. (I had many friends whose dads worked there. I was virtually the only kid at my school without one of those Star Wars LED watches that came out in the late 1970's, but I digress...) Anyway, I'm not sure if this story is true or what...
ANYWAY, the story is this: back in the day, Texas Instruments had a mail robot. It wasn't anything fancy, really. It basically just followed a colored stripe along the floor, and it stopped periodically and beeped or something so that people could come grab their mail or put mail onto it. Not anything amazingly impressive from an artificial intelligence point of view, but still fun to have around and useful and impresses clients when they tour the plant.
So, apparently part of the facility was more than one floor, and at some point in its life, they taught the robot to ride the elevator. This may not have been all that difficult. It already knew how to avoid collisions by simply stopping on its stripe and waiting until the obstacle moved of its own accord, so riding the elevator is not that much harder: the doors are just another obstacle to be waited for, and when they open, it's safe to move forward, just as in any other case.
Well, that is, it's safe to move forward when the doors are open with one exception. You can see where this is going, can't you? One day the elevator repairman came. Nobody anticipated what would happen. The repairman put up a nice conspicuous sign to warn people to avoid the open shaft while repairs were being made. But the poor robot didn't understand. It couldn't read. It just followed its track with a singular dedication to delivering the mail. You know, neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor open elevator shafts...
Can any Slashdot people confirm this story?
The hospitals are no longer safe people! Thats where the invasion is starting! Flee for the hills, set up your resistance groups, prepare to fight for humanity... and whatever you do, for the love of all that you believe in.... DON'T GET SICK!!!
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Good thing Old Glory national insurance offers Robot Insurance, which covers the elderly against just such a thing; you know robots run on perscription medication, they were just asking for trouble if you ask me!
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
The future really sneaks up on you. All of a sudden we're in a Michael Crichton Movie.
(probably redundant)p ?AuNum=2 l doCollection
Waldo
A telefactoring device; also known as the Waldo F. Jones Synchronous Reduplicating Pantograph.
http://technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=23
http://technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.as
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~main/heinlein.html
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~main/heinlein.html#Wa
Aother article on the same story:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23978
If the story itself weren't bad enough, this article goes over the top. By calling it "drug dealing" instead of drug dispensing, the headline make it seem like the robot is out on street corners selling illegal narcotics.
It's hard to know what really happened, as both of these stories treat the event so lightly. It appears the reporters and editors see news as providing entertainment instead of providing information.
Tag lost or not installed.
and an ass made by tandy. He's got high speed modem and a silver plated scrotum.
1. Kill, Kill, Kill!
2. Ask questions.
3. Run facial recognition test for all suspected terrorists.