ITV News: Robot kills man at German vehicle factory

Added by Ankur Sinha on.

A technician has been killed by a robot at a Volkswagen plant near Kassel, Germany. The Future of Life Institute (FLI), funded in part by a $10 million donation from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, announced its plans to use $7 million to fund various projects aimed at controlling artificial intelligence. The robotics and psychology experts said that machines are incapable of learning from random “life” experience, need humans to be smart, can not make jokes, can not be creative, can not have new ideas and can not play.

[Should the world kill killer robots before it’s too late?].

Those who argue against this thought, suggest that robots are not actually intelligent. The accident is already being said to be due to “human error”.

The Financial Times reported that many robots in vehicle manufacturing plants are kept behind metal cages for worker safety reasons.

A VW spokesperson has confirmed that a man died on Monday after suffering severe injuries at a plant in Baunatal, north of Frankfurt.

The robot then pinned him against a metal slab while he was working in a safety cage, says automaker officials. He also stressed on the fact that there were no issues with the functioning of the robot.

The robot is usually programmed by humans to perform discrete tasks in the assembly process, but this time, something went wrong. Another employee was also present but was unharmed.

He declined to offer additional information as there’s an ongoing investigation on the incident.

German prosecutors are still deciding if they would lay charges and whom would they file a case against.