A Knightscope Robot Gave Up On Life And Drowned Itself

Another robot bites the dust. After a Knightscope robot was attacked in Sillicon Valley, one of its brothers committed suicide in a fountain #machinemagic

A couple of months ago we were reporting that a 41-year-old drunk man had attacked a security robot from Knightscope for doing its job. While patrolling a parking lot, the robot was punched and left on the ground. The oval, 300 pounds bot was disabled for the day but it came back to duty soon enough. Meanwhile, the man was arrested for prowling and public intoxication that, incidentally, led to the assault of a harmless bot.

Now, another Knightscope bot got into trouble. This time, though, it seems that no human was involved in its “suicidal act”. The bot was at work in D.C., patrolling  Georgetown Waterfront, a commercial-and-office complex. Its task was simple – survey the area, making sure nothing is out of order. It could beep and whistle to maintain the peace. Instead, the robot took a dive in a nearby fountain. Of course, this rash decision led to its demise, guards spotting the robot falling face first in the water.

Our D.C. office building got a security robot. It drowned itself.

We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots. pic.twitter.com/rGLTAWZMjn

— Bilal Farooqui (@bilalfarooqui) July 17, 2017

Knightscope bots are fairly cheap and mostly used to patrol low-risk areas like malls and parking lots. They can detect abnormal activity and report it to humans, capture or live stream 360-degree video and send real-time notifications. One unit can be rented for $7/hour.