Robot Love Goes Bad

hundredrabh writes "Ever had a super needy girlfriend that demanded all your love and attention and would freak whenever you would leave her alone? Irritating, right? Now imagine the same situation, only with an asexual third-generation humanoid robot with 100kg arms. Such was the torture subjected upon Japanese researchers recently when their most advanced robot, capable of simulating human emotions, ditched its puppy love programming and switched over into stalker mode. Eventually the researchers had to decommission the robot, with a hope of bringing it back to life again."

Comments

GPP feature?

[Zaphod-AVA]

"...their most advanced robot, capable of simulating human emotions..."

Arthur- "Sounds ghastly!"

Marvin- "It is. It all is. Absolutely ghastly."

Re:turn it off

[vishbar]

Hans Reiser begs to differ.

Nonsense

[Kell Bengal]

I have never read such utter drivel in all my life. There was a problem with the code and a researcher got trapped - this doesn't mean the robot is lovesick, it means their OH&S has a serious problem. Really, she should not have been working alone with potentially dangerous hardware like that - powerful robots (capable of lifting humans, like this one) can be deadly.

YIAARTYVM (Yes, I Am A Roboticist, Thank You Very Much) and I've worked with potentially lethal automated systems in the past - we had very stringent safety protocols in place to protect students and researchers in the case of unintended activation of the hardware.

To say that the robot is 'love stricken' or any other anthropomorphised nonsense simply detracts from the reality that their safety measures failed and someone could have been killed.

Re:Scientifically Speaking ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right to be suspicious, it's completely a hoax:

Update: The story is a fake, and the robot shown is actually of a Japanese medical robot. Thanks tipster!