The robot took its task too seriously. He danced so fiercely that the restaurant staff were unable to stop him.
I guess we can stop wondering when humanoid robots will start appearing in public spaces. The Polish chain is dominated by Edward Warchocki, a nice robot vlogger who does funny things on the streets, and in a Californian restaurant, two-legged machines entertain customers. Now that this is happening, some of you will probably have apocalyptic visions straight from the game Detroit: Become Human, but don’t worry – the robots are not ready to take up arms yet, but they can cause harm by dancing madly. A video of an unusual event is causing a stir on the Internet, and although it is more funny than scary, it makes us think that we should keep an eye on autonomous robots in public places. And it all started because of man’s fault…
He got so into dancing that he started destroying the table
Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant from Cupertino – yes, the same Cupertino where Apple is headquartered – hired humanoid robots to entertain customers by dancing. Haidilao is a chain known for experimentation – the branch in Beijing, for example, tried to employ robots in the roles of waiters and assistant chefs, but in the case of the Californian outlet, their task was limited only to providing entertainment and publicity. It must be admitted that the robot that caused all the fuss did this job very well, because half of the Internet is now talking about Haidilao.
One of the customers asked for the robot to be moved a little closer to the table, which is a rather unusual procedure, but the staff agreed to this request. Unfortunately, at that moment, there was an anomaly in the robot’s behavior, which began to dance madly and wave its arms and hit the tableware.
However, the reaction of the staff turned out to be the most viral – the employees were unable to turn off the robot and several people had to hold the still dancing machine by force. One of the employees tried to type something on the phone, based on which Internet users suggest that the robot was controlled by a mobile application that stopped working. It is surprising that the staff was not prepared for such a scenario and did not use the safety button or other procedure that should be used in the event of undesirable behavior.
Good thing it only ended in laughter
Haidilao confirmed the incident in a statement to the media, but noted that there was no “loss of control over the robot” – well, the viral video shows something different, but let’s assume that the company’s representatives know what they are talking about. There have been suggestions online that the robot’s strange behavior could be due to the fact that it is a relatively new product on the market. This is probably the AgiBot X2 model, which was presented at CES in January. The Chinese chain explains that the incident would not have occurred if the customer had not asked for the robot to come closer to the table. The fact is, however, that in the moment of collision with the environment, the robot should refrain from further movements and not continue dancing at its best.
Fortunately, the incident only ended in laughter, but in another scenario the robot could have hit the customer or hit him with scattered cutlery. Then no one would be laughing, and the legal consequences would quickly discourage Haidilao from introducing robots to restaurants again.
