- Gumi City Hall said ‘Supervisor Robot’ has disappeared after falling down stairs
A civil servant robot working for a council in South Korea was found unconscious after apparently throwing himself down a flight of stairs, and locals are now mourning the country’s first robot suicide.
Gumi City Council announced that the robot is no more after falling down a two-metre staircase at around 4pm last Thursday.
The “Supervisor Robot” was found mangled lying on the staircase between the first and second floors of the council building, the city of Gumi said, with photographs showing the accident scene.
Witnesses saw the officer mysteriously “circling in one place as if there was something there” before it happened, but the exact cause of the fall is still being investigated, a city hall official said.
“The pieces have been collected and will be analyzed by the company,” the official said, adding that the robot had “helped with the daily delivery of documents, promotion of the city and delivered information” to local residents.
The supervisor robot was created by Bear Robotics, a California waiter robot startup.
“He was officially part of the city council, one of us,” another official said. “It worked diligently.”
Local media headlines questioned the robot’s apparent suicide, asking: “Why did the diligent civil servant do it?” Or asking ‘was the work too hard’ for the robot?
People online responded to the news by asking: “If the workload had been too much, would I have tossed and turned for a long time and then ran down the stairs?”, while another said: “I pray that the scrap metal rests in peace”.
Designated in August 2023, the robot was one of the first to be used in this way in the city.
Made by Bear Robotics, a California-based robot waiter startup, the robot worked 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and had its own civil service card.
Unlike other robots, which can usually only use one floor, the Gumi Town Hall robot could call an elevator and move floors on its own.
The city council said the robot had “helped with the daily delivery of documents, promotion of the city and delivering information” to local residents.
South Korea is one of the most enthusiastic robot users in the world.
It has the highest robot density in the world, with one industrial robot for every 10 employees, according to the International Federation of Robotics.
Gumi City Council says it does not plan to adopt a second robot officer at this time.