Can work pressure affect robots too? Well, the answer can be “yes”. In a surprising turn of events, a civil servant robot working for the Gumi City Council in South Korea apparently “committed suicide” leaving many confused. This is being termed as the country’s first “robot suicide”.
According to the officials, the robot threw itself down a flight of stairs due to unexplained reasons. On June 26, the Gumi City Council said that the parts of robot, dubbed as Robot Supervisor, were found scattered under the stairs between the first and second floors of the council building.
According to the Daily Mail report, the Robot Supervisor was a hardworking employee of Gumi City Council who used to work every day from 9 am to 6 pm.
Suicide due to workload?
The robot had come under stress due to excessive workload, reported Daily Mail. Local residents told that before falling down, it kept circling in the same place for a long time. Then it jumped down. Why and how it fell down is being investigated.
The pieces have been collected by the special investigation team and they will be analysed by the company. People were very fond of the robot employee as it used to deliver various types of government papers to the local residents. It used to also give information to people.
The ‘robot supervisor’ was appointed in August 2023. This was the first robot to be appointed as an officer. It was built by California’s robot startup, Bear Robotics. It also had a civil service officer’s card.
Source: https://www.news18.com/world/nine-hours-of-job-no-time-to-rest-robot-commits-suicide-due-to-heavy-workload-8955656.html