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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?
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
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!
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 ;)
In all seriousness, isn't rampage a bit strong of a word to use?
You're right. The correct term is berserk.
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.
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
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.
-place your best 'suppositories' joke here-
Stop invalid scientific research. Ask your local scientists to feed their lab rats with a phytoestrogen-free chow.
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."
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.
All that crap and you missed the most important point. The villain in the move was Gene Simmons of KISS!
Open Source Java DAO Generator
More like:I IIICAAAAATE!!!
Medicate!
Medicate!
Medicate!
MEEEEEEDI
(or at least "Crap, wrong Doctor, run away, run awayyyyy!")
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
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.
MED-II-CATE!!
It's from The Register. They report real stories with a humorous slant - so basically, the robot took a couple of wrong turns.
The Reg's main reporting is on IT news, and for the most part that's pretty decent reporting. Stuff like this they just throw in for comic relief. They have a whole running theme of highly sensationalistic stories about how The Machines are going to try and wipe us out, regularly reporting on things like toasters electrocuting people, or people getting locked inside of high tech public toilets.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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!
It didn't by any chance get struck by lightning, did it?
Technoli