Robot Employee at Georgetown Waterfront Drowns Itself At Mall

Posted on July 20, 2017 by State of the Nation

Look at this downtrodden robot and rejoice at your human superiority (for now)

By Monica Torres

Robots will take our jobs, sure—if they live that long.

This we know: There are many dystopian predictions of how our future robot overlords will take our jobs. Two-thirds of Americans believe that robots will be doing the jobs of humans in 50 years.

But thanks to one widely shared photo on Monday, we know that at least we’re still superior in one area: swimming.

Twitter user Bilal Farooqi shared a photo of a robot that wandered into a watering hole at the Georgetown Waterfront where he works.

The photo alone has already become a symbol of human-robot relations on social media. An image of two humans appearing to help a fallen security robot is delicious to those of clinging to our species’ last shreds of dignity.

That the security robot appears to be the 300-pound Knightscope K5 model makes it even better.

Looking like a clunky R2D2 from Star Wars, the Knightscope K5 was built to be a crime-fighting robot that could rove our streets and monitor for suspicious activity. It has been used in some offices and malls across America.

There have been hiccups, however. One Knightscope got defeated by a drunk man who knocked it down. Another ran over a toddler’s foot.

http://twitter.com/liliankim7/status/752741535381229568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theladders.com%2Fp%2F24160%2Fdrowned-robot-and-human-superiority

And now, one Knightscope has fallen into a watery grave.

We don’t know where our jobs will be in 50 years, but we can take comfort in knowing we have the upper hand so far. Gauging by how people have reacted to the photo on Twitter, we’re projecting our hopes and anxieties about our robotic futures onto this K5’s 300-pound frame.

http://twitter.com/darth/status/887035919378726912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theladders.com%2Fp%2F24160%2Fdrowned-robot-and-human-superiority

___
http://www.theladders.com/p/24160/drowned-robot-and-human-superiority

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.