Here's a truly bad omen if the robot uprising ever does occur: a study has found that people will follow robots in a simulated emergency, despite knowing that the machine is taking them the wrong way.

People asked to find their way out of a burning building overwhelmingly elected to follow an "emergency guide robot" along a previously unknown route instead of taking the exit they entered through.

The study suggests that humans will place an exceptional amount of trust in machines, even when it flies in the face of common sense alternatives and despite the risk of robots malfunctioning. The researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta said it shows that people will see robots as "authority figures" that are likely to be trusted in high-pressure emergency environments.