SHANGHAI, NOV 19 – A CCTV camera footage of a robotics company’s showroom showing 12 robots being ‘kidnapped’ by a tiny robot has gone viral recently.
According to reports Oddity CentralChinese social media reported an incident had occurred last August at a robotics company’s showroom in Shanghai.
Footage captured by the venue’s surveillance cameras showed a small robot entering the showroom at night and slowly approaching a group of robots and talking or interacting with them.
After chatting for a while, the damit robot somehow managed to get a group of other robots to follow him ‘home’.
At first, most viewers thought the video was funny and fake, but then the Shanghai robotics company admitted that their robots had indeed been ‘kidnapped’ by the little robot.
“Do you work overtime?” the little robot asked the other robots.
“I never quit my job”, one of the other robots replied.
“So you didn’t come home?”
“I don’t have a home.”
“So, come with me home,” said the little robot before leading the other robots out of the showroom.
When two of the group of robots began to follow, it began to issue the command, “Go home,” and the other 10 robots in the exhibit followed suit.
The bizarre video gained a lot of attention online after it was posted on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, and while many initially thought it was funny, the amusement turned to concern when the video was verified as authentic by the video sender and the companies that own the ‘hijacked’ robots. .
On November 11, a spokesperson for the robot manufacturer from Hangzhou confirmed that the small robot featured in the video was one of their company’s models and that the alleged ‘kidnapping’ was true, saying more details would be revealed later.
The robotics company from Shanghai also confirmed that the tiny robots were somehow able to access their robots’ internal protocols, adding that it was almost impossible for the tiny robots to initiate conversations and ‘kidnap’ other robots by themselves.
The small robot company went on to reveal that the entire scene was meant for testing. They have also contacted the Shanghai robot manufacturer and asked if they would be willing to allow their robot to be kidnapped and they also agreed to allow it into the showroom.
Since then, the incident has been confirmed to be true.
Erbai, the small AI-powered robot was given instructions to ‘persuade’ and influence other robots and “Unexpectedly, it really succeeded” as shown in the video.
The revelation that an AI robot managed to carry out such a kidnapping operation even in a controlled environment was described as ‘alarming’ and ‘frightening’ by people on Chinese social media.
“This is (actually) not the time to laugh. This is a serious security issue,” one person commented on the video. – Agency
