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A Rogue Robot Is Blamed For a Human Colleague's Gruesome Death (qz.com)
A new lawsuit has emerged claiming a robot is responsible for killing a human colleague, reports Quartz. It all started in July 2015, when Wanda Holbrook, "a maintenance technician performing routine duties on an assembly line" at an auto-parts maker in Ionia, Michigan, called Ventra Ionia Main, "was 'trapped by robotic machinery' and crushed to death." From the report: On March 7, her husband, William Holbrook, filed a wrongful death complaint (pdf) in Michigan federal court, naming five North American robotics companies involved in engineering and integrating the machines and parts used at the plant: Prodomax, Flex-N-Gate, FANUC, Nachi, and Lincoln Electric. Holbrook's job involved keeping robots in working order. She routinely inspected and adjusted processes on the assembly line at Ventra, which makes bumpers and trailer hitches. One day, Holbrook was performing her regular duties when a machine acted very irregularly, according to the lawsuit reported in Courthouse News. Holbrook was in the plant's six-cell "100 section" when a robot unexpectedly activated, taking her by surprise. The cells are separated by safety doors and the robot should not have been able to move. But it somehow reached Holbrook, and was intent on loading a trailer-hitch assembly part right where she stood over a similar part in another cell. The machine loaded the hardware onto Holbrook's head. She was unable to escape, and her skull was crushed. Co-workers who eventually noticed that something seemed amiss found Holbrook dead. William Holbrook seeks an unspecified amount of damages, arguing that before her gruesome death, his wife "suffered tremendous fright, shock and conscious pain and suffering." He also names three of the defendants -- FANUC, Nachi, and Lincoln Electric -- in two additional claims of product liability and breach of implied warranty. He argues that the robots, tools, controllers, and associated parts were not properly designed, manufactured or tested, and not fit for use. "The robot from section 130 should have never entered section 140, and should have never attempted to load a hitch assembly within a fixture that was already loaded with a hitch assembly. A failure of one or more of defendants' safety systems or devices had taken place, causing Wanda's death," the lawsuit alleges.
You had the switch on "kill" rather than "assemble".
Yes, but this was from an adjacent work station. Equivalent to unplugging your circular saw in the garage, only to be attacked by the refrigerator in the next room.
A failure of one or more of defendants’ safety systems or devices had taken place, causing Wanda’s death.
That's it. That's all this lawsuit is about, faulty failsafes on industrial equipment that lead to an accident. Probably with merit.
But sure, call it "rogue robots" and "killing"...
The robot was just following orders.
It's sounds absolutely terrible, but one of the primary things you learn when doing heavy machinery maintenance is lock out/tag out that renders all related machinery completely inoperable while servicing. It doesn't seem that this was done?
To be clear, if the company maintenance policies prevented her from properly locking or what she was working on, then they certainly do have a suit.
-Styopa
The term "human colleague" immediately reveals that the writer has no idea of what a "robot" is. The most important thing always to keep in mind is that a "robot" is a machine - or, more likely nowadays, a collection of machines. It is a tool, even if that tool is capable of a limited set of autonomous actions. The accidental death described in TFA is a perfect illustration of this vital principle. Maybe there should be signs ten feet tall prominently displayed on all walls in workplaces that use robots: "A ROBOT IS *NOT* A 'COLLEAGUE'!"
Mind you, this confusion has been inherent since the word was first coined. "The word 'robot' was first used to denote a fictional humanoid in a 1920 play R.U.R. by the Czech writer, Karel Capek but it was Karel's brother Josef Capek who was the word's true inventor". [Wikipedia] The word is derived from the Slavic language root meaning "work" or "worker", and strongly suggests that a robot is to some extent intechangeable with human workers. Of course, that is absolutely not the case.
Isaac Asimov confronted these issues head-on when he began writing science fiction stories about robots. His "Three Laws of Robotics", which essentially forbid any robot to harm a human being, are treated as indispensable in his stories. But Asimov blandly ignored the obvious fact that there is no known way to implement such laws, which incorporate high-level abstract notions and moral principles. Until robots become at least as intelligent and complex as human nervous systems, such commands cannot be implemented. And if they ever do, we will immediately face even more tremendous problems.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Begins? This sounds exactly like the sort of issue from that start of the industrial revolution, where people were routinely mauled by machinery with inadequate safety standards. About 200 years too late for 'and so it begins'.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"Robot" engineer here. And when I say "Robot", I really talk about "Industrial Robot". Not the one that look like human.
It's 2015 all over again when another "Robot" killed a Volkswagen worker. People were all "Matrix have begun" rogue.
First, let me tell you to scary part : "The robot have done exactly what it have been programmed to".
Second, let me tell you the encouraging part : "The robot have done exactly what it have been programmed to".
It's always the same thing, "industrial robot" kill/hurt someone, and we see an headline about Robot revolution coming to kill us all in Terminator style. Those robot are just basic program controlling a bunch of servomotor, nothing "AI rogue humanoid robot with a shutgun" like. But there's on thing that are common to each of those story : "Safety violation".
In my mind, industrial robot are still the most dangerous piece of hardware you'll ever work with, period. And that's why there's a shit ton of safety measure for them. Yeah gears are dangerous and could tear off your finger, but you indistinctly know that as long as you don't put your finger close to them, they won't bite you. It's not the case with robot.
Back to the Volkswagen case, the worker didn't respect the safety procedure. The robot are connected to a safety gate that "must" be open when there's a worker inside the cell. You enter the cell, you put your lock in the gate to deactivate everything dangerous inside of it. But, from what I've understand, those worker wanted to work fast and took a "shortcut" while testing their equipment and decided to close the gate while a worker was inside. Of of the system then activated the robot that started it's wielding procedure with the worker right between both : https://www.youtube.com/watch?... (Look between 0:05 and 0:30, everything else in this video is shit).
I work constantly in this sort of system and you'll be amazed how many "close call" I've seem so far. The thing is, people are completely clueless about robot (Hell, one time I was presenting a robotic cell with two KUKA robotic arm to some potential customer and one of the cute asian girl asked me if she should "see" the body of the robot. She was thinking there's was a huge robot under the floor controlling the two arm).
Long story short : Respect the freaking safety procedure.
Elok
It isn't always possible, however.
Note this portion of the description from the summary:
routinely inspected and adjusted processes
- there are many times when the design of the machine is such that adjusting and calibrating requires the machine to be energized; and sometimes safety interlocks must be disabled (generally with vendor provided tools) in order to make those adjustments.
An injury or death (sadly more specifically the high dollar value lawsuit following it) may provide sufficient incentive for the vendor to redesign the machine to allow for routine adjustments in a safer manner.
Even though plenty of people will dismiss this as a matter of a careless worker (which it might or might not be true in the specific instance), the fact is that some jobs are dangerous but necessary. Personally, I won't take a dangerous job; but I know that a modern lifestyle requires that someone does dangerous jobs. Workers, managements and equipment vendors all must work together to minimize the number of injuries and deaths involved with doing dangerous work. Ideally robotics are able to reduce the number of workers exposed to 'dangerous but necessary' conditions; but until we have robots that are able to fully adjust and repair other robots people will be involved in this kind of work.
I think about the only possible dumb reaction to this news would be to immediately assume you know what happened.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Unless the design of the robot requires that doing her job (adjusting processes) can only be done in the danger zone with the robots powered up - in which case it seems likely the robot manufacturers do have a portion of liability. In theory this is what a lawsuit will determine.
That was my first thought, but then I read beyond the headline. She was working on a section that was presumably locked out properly. This robot was from another section, where no lockout should have been required. Think of it as her working on a house's electrical system. Having shut down the circuit she was working on properly the house was wired wrong so that when removing power from a given circuit it is still powered due to miswiring by the electrician as she got electrocuted.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Agreed that a Robot is no more a colleague than a screwdriver.
I think you're wrong about Asimov, though. It's obvious that to write about theoretical concerns of future technology, the author must proceed without knowing how to actually implement the technology, but may be able to say that it's theoretically possible. There is no shortage of good, predictive science fiction written when we had no idea how to achieve the technology portrayed. For example, Clarke's orbital satellites were steam-powered. Steam is indeed an efficient way to harness solar power if you have a good way to radiate the waste heat, but we ended up using photovoltaic. But Clarke was on solid ground regarding the theoretical possibility of such things.
Bruce Perens.
I did read it and this bit puzzles me
a robot unexpectedly activated, taking her by surprise
because I can't find the bit about her relaying that information to co-workers because they "eventually noticed that something seemed amiss found Holbrook dead". So how did she say that the robot unexpectedly activated and took her by surprise? It may well be a valid assumption but without any witnesses it cannot be stated with certainty.
Bad analogy. Never trust the labeling of a breaker. Always check that the circuit is not live.
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One might infer that it took her by surprise because she failed to get out of the way before it crushed her.
If you are working inside a machine or cabinet, then yes, you'd power it down. Doing routine programming and maintenance in a robotic cell is different though. The robots typically have to be powered up in order to teach or operate them. So when you enter a live cell, you have a lockout mechanism on the safety gate. A properly locked out cell will not let the robots or other equipment in the cell operate in automatic mode, but they are still able to function manually when you allow them to. In this case, either she screwed up and failed to lock out, or someone else screwed up and let a robot in a different zone enter her locked out zone without a safety check.
When an airplane flies into a mountain, it's a pretty good bet that it's pilot error.
Thanks for providing us with a detailed example of your root cause analysis abilities. I will be sure to disregard everything you say as baseless rubbish from this point forward.
Regards
The people who actually know the many ways things can fail.
Someone didn't follow Lock Out Procedures or those procedures were inadequate.
The only possible liability lies with her, or the company, not the robot manufacturers.
For those who don't know what "Lock Out Procedures" means... It is safety protocol that has been used in industry for at least decades in which a person who is going to work near dangerous machinery turns off the power to the system and physically puts a padlock on the switch so that it can not be turned back on. Protocol is that there is only one key to the padlock and the person who placed the padlock carries the key with them. This way the person is responsible for their own safety. If 15 people are working on the equipment there are 15 padlocks hanging off the switch (there are special devices that allow a whole gob of padlocks to placed on a switch.) Lockout can be mechanical in addition to electrical, but the concept is that when something is locked it, it is not physically possible for it to operate. It important to note that control systems are not locked out, actual power sources are, this way even a computer or control system failure can not cause a dangerous condition when something is "locked out".