Aldebaran

The second human on cute humanoid robot attack in two months has resulted in internal damage to a Pepper-brand automaton that worked in a store in Japan.

According to the Japan Times, an apparently inebriated 60-year-old man entered a branch of SoftBank in Yokosuka and in a fit of rage kicked one of its helper robots. Reportedly the man was not angry at the robot itself, but did not like the attitude of one of its store clerks.


Pepper now moves more slowly and it's thought that its internal computer system may be damaged.

Pepper, as a collective noun, are a form of humanoid social robot that has been designed to live with humans. Each individual bot has a friendly but slightly naive look, which presumably is designed to make him/it look approachable and non-threatening.

According to Aldebaran, the company which created him: "Pepper can translate what state you are in using his knowledge of universal emotions (joy, surprise, anger, doubt and sadness) and his ability to analyse your facial expression, body language and the words you use. He will guess your mood, and will even adapt to it. For example, he will try to cheer you up by playing your favourite song."

Aldebaran

Although Aldebaran's ultimate goal for Pepper is that he should be able to live with humans in their homes, the robot was originally designed for SoftBank, one of the largest phone operator in Japan. Many Peppers now greet and interact with customers in stores across the country.


The attack on Pepper comes only shortly after HitchBot -- a hitchhiking robot that relied on the kindness of humans -- was destroyed by human vandals a couple of months ago. HitchBot's demise sparked an outpouring of human emotion on Twitter.

According to Kate Darling, an expert in robot ethics at MIT Media Lab, it is natural for humans to empathise with robots due to our natural inclination towards anthropomorphism and our biological predisposition to react to things that can move independently. Speaking about our reactions to the attack on HitchBot at The Conference in Malmo last month she said: "Of course people are upset -- this was an act of vandalism. No matter what it is, if it's a car -- we don't like this behaviour."

We've yet to see a similar expression of regret in response to the assault on Pepper -- just another robot that was trying to be a friend to humans. It should be noted that the clerk who worked in the store was unharmed. It might be better right now to take our anger out on robots rather than our fellow living beings, but in a few years when the tables have turned we might start to wish we had treated our robot overlords with a little more kindliness and respect.