When robots kill: deaths by machines are nothing new but AI is about to change everything

Robot-related deaths are incredibly rare, but intelligent machines capable of killing humans will require a radically different approach

  • 5 days ago
The position of specialised professionals is coming to an end - machine learning and AI is set to change it

On January 25, 1979, 25-year-old Robert Williams climbed into a storage rack to retrieve parts from a malfunctioning robot at Ford’s Flat Rock plant in Michigan. The robot, not able to sense Williams' presence, swung round and struck him on the head, killing him instantly. The robot kept working for 30 minutes as Williams lay dead on the floor. His death, nearly forty years ago, makes Williams the first person to be killed as a result of actions by a robot.

In August 1983, his family was awarded $10 million after a jury ruled against Unit Handling, the company that designed the one-ton machine. At the time, it was the largest personal injury sum ever awarded in Michigan. On the rare occasions when robot-related deaths do occur, press reports and public imagination hints at some kind of malevolence, yet history shows that such deaths occur because the technology is too stupid, not too smart. But as factory automation ramps up, the idea of death by artificial intelligence is raising new questions.

In July 2015, Wanda Holbrook was performing maintenance work at Ventra Ionia Main, an auto-parts manufacturer in Ionia, Michigan when she became trapped and was crushed to death. Earlier this month, her husband, William Holbrook, filed a lawsuit for wrongful death. Holbrook’s lawsuit has a seemingly simple aim: to work out who was responsible for his wife’s death. As a result, his lawsuit names five engineering firms involved in the creation and operation of machines used in the plant.

If operating correctly, the lawsuit argues, the robot should not have been able to move while Holbrook was carrying-out maintenance. “A failure of one or more of defendants’ safety systems or devices had taken place, causing Wanda’s death,” the legal document states. Where blame falls in the case could set a precedent as more intelligent industrial robots are deployed on factory floors. At present, such machines are kept locked in cages, with a number of doors and safety checks in place to ensure they stop operating whenever a human comes near. The so-called “envelope” in which they operate is a no-go area. As with Williams in 1979, Holbrook's death was the result of a machine lacking the intelligence to respond to the presence of a human.

Since 1979, improvements to automation and safety standards have seen robot-related death rates fall. Despite eye-catching headlines, robots have caused just 33 workplace deaths and injuries in the United States in the past 30 years, according to the US Department of Labor. But, as robots become more intelligent and more mobile, moving out of the cages in which they are so often entombed, the risk could rise. As the hard border between man and machine dissolves, new measures will need to be introduced.

Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics outlined in the 1950 novel I, Robot, are an oft-quoted example of how our approach to industrial robots, and robots in general, might have to change:


Efforts are already underway. Madeline Gannon, also known as the “robot whisperer” spends her days experimenting with giant industrial robots. Using sensors and motion capture, Gannon turns machines capable of killing her into a subservient, supine beings that dance, draw and even give massages. “We can give these robots eyes so we can safely collaborate,” she told WIRED in 2016. It’s an approach and a way of thinking that is yet to catch on more widely.

In the UK, online food retailer Ocado is researching robots capable of handling fruit without bruising and damaging it. The same firm is also researching an AI-powered, humanoid robot called SecondHands that would, as the name suggests, act as a second pair of hands for factory engineers. “The big challenge is to get the robot to proactively do stuff, understanding where it is in the task and then doing something useful,” Graham Deacon, leader of Ocado Technology's robotics research team, told WIRED in 2015.

But the rise of artificial intelligence opens up a new, more complex threat: ethical robots. Once a robot is able to make decisions for itself, Asimov’s laws come into sharp focus. The industrial robots of the future will not just have to be safe when working alongside humans, they will also have to act to protect humans when they may be in danger. In the factories of the future, how a robot thinks will be just as important as how it moves.