German robots beat people to learn not to kill them

    German scientist Roland Behrens wants to teach robots not to kill people. But first he has to figure out how hard the robot has to hit in order to do harm. A team of scientists focused on the coexistence of robots and humans has attracted volunteers who are now suffering beatings by robots.

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    Various robots help to heal people , perform operations , clean apartments , collect cars, move racks in warehouses . But robotics is not yet completely safe.

    Over the past ten years, 158 cases of injuries caused by robots to people in Germany alone have been recorded. Earlier in 2015At the Volkswagen factory, a worker setting up a conveyor robotic arm received a blow in the chest and was pressed against a steel plate. The man died in the hospital. The first human death from a robot at the factory was recorded in 1979, when a 25-year-old worker at a Ford assembly plant in Michigan was killed by a blow to the head with a manipulator - the cause of the tragedy was non-compliance with safety precautions. Robots need to be taught to cope with any careless human actions.

    Robots in an experiment, a team of scientists from Germany beat volunteers on the shoulder and arm, and a person estimates pain on a scale of one to ten points. After a score of five points, volunteers are sent for ultrasound testing to examine the damage.

    “The best way is to avoid contact with a person. But if contact has occurred, the consequences should be so small that the next day a person goes to work, with a maximum bruise, and not with an injury or an open wound, ”says Roland Behrens, author of the experiment.

    The Behrens team is working to improve the security of the "CoBots" - "Collaborative robots", that is, robots designed to work together with humans. Such machines slow down or stop after unwanted contact with a person, instead of crushing him or injuring him. Behrens' task is to find out how strong a robot can have a person before it injures him, and how the equipment should work if it is equipped with sharp blades, a saw or other dangerous tools for humans.

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