Can we talk about when a service robot kept following me at a tech fair?

I was checking out the new service robots at a tech fair. One of them decided my backpack was a target and followed me around for ten minutes. What's the most awkward robot encounter you've had?

3 comments

3 Comments

janar571mo agoMost Upvoted

Stopped dead in my tracks and turned around to face it once. That usually resets their tracking. Had a delivery bot at a convention lock onto my coffee cup like it was a priority package. Just stood there blocking the aisle until I moved the cup behind my back. Their object recognition still gets tripped up by the dumbest things.

ivan821mo ago

No kidding! These bots are clueless sometimes. I saw one at the grocery store that kept following a guy's red hat like it was a target. It bumped into shelves twice before someone rebooted it. Another time, a street cleaning bot got stuck on a plastic bag for ten minutes. They program them to recognize shapes, but real world stuff throws them off every time. It's like they need a common sense update or something.

thomas5841mo ago

Ha! Saw a bot at the mall once that thought my water bottle was a delivery it needed to grab. Took ages to shake it off!