Robot kills man at Volkswagen plant in Germany

A clear violation of Asimov's First Law of Robotics, "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." Poor guy. May God bless his family.

These are less the typical image of a Hollywood cybernetic robot, and more of a pre-programmed mechanical assembly tool. Sounds like a lack of safety features, or not properly switched off.

So the robot picked the poor man up and crushed him against a metal plate? If it was part of the programming then what part of the process involves robots grabbing things and smashing them against metal plates?

Horrible as the story is it's impossible for an SF fan such as myself not to reflect on the novels and movies where robots start to kill. Then there's the final part of the report - who do they charge, and what with?

Damn, Ah-nold!

You had one job! One job!

First and foremost, condolences to the workers family. I have always suspected that robots will kill or enslave humans.

Robot good, human bad. The robot needs to be sent back to the factory for re-programming.

The singularity is coming...

It has begun...

who do they charge, and what with?

Everyone involved. For negligence.

What I wonder about is if there wasn't the current panic over AI or robots, would this have been reported as an industrial machine accident, or even widely reported at all?

A tragedy for the poor man involved, and everyone related to the incident - it's a terrible thing and an awful way to go, but factory accidents along complicated machine lines happen all the time, and probably a significant percentage of them occur on automated lines.

Like many have said, negligence, inadequate safety for contingency situations, and possibly bad programming and human error. A sad thing.

There is a current panic over AI?

Lol, Speed. If it's a T-1000 then lure it to the nearest steel mill.