Austrian fireman claim to have witnessed the world’s first ever robot suicide after a cleaning robot apparently rebelled against the monotony of work (Picture: CEN)

Has the world just witnessed its first ever robot suicide?

Tedious housework was seemingly too much for one cleaning robot to take, when it apparently rebelled and decided to end it all.

The android was given the tiresome task of cleaning up some spilt cereal before it climbed on to a kitchen hotplate where it was destroyed, according to reports in Austria.

It had reportedly grown weary of being forced to clean the same house every day and decided to become a martyr to the robot cause.


‘Somehow it seems to have reactivated itself and made its way along the work surface where it pushed a cooking pot out of the way and basically that was the end of it,’ explained fireman Helmut Kniewasser, who was called to tackle the blaze at Hinterstoder in Kirchdorf.



‘It pretty quickly started to melt underneath and then stuck to the kitchen hotplate. It then caught fire. By the time we arrived, it was just a pile of ash.’

A robot (not pictured) took its own life (Picture: File)

He added: ‘The entire building had to be evacuated and there was severe smoke damage particularly in the flat where the robot had been in use.

‘It’s a mystery how it came to be activated and ended up making its way to the hotplate

‘I don’t know about the allegations of a robot suicide but the homeowner is insistent that the device was switched off.’

It took an hour to clean and make the building safe. The homeowner plans to sue the robot’s manufacturer.