Volkswagen Robots
(IN PHOTO) Robotic machines weld bodies of Kia cars in its factory in Zilina, 200 kilometres north of Bratislava October 3, 2012. Carmakers that cut costs last decade in Western Europe like Volkswagen, or those who were never saddled with expensive factories there, such as Korea's Hyundai and Kia, are now investing in new designs, conquering new markets and ramping up production. Between them, VW Group, Mercedes, Kia and Hyundai have raised their share of the European market to 35.5 percent in the eight months to end August 2012, from 30 percent in the same period of 2010. Up the road in the foothills of Slovakia's Fatra mountains, the most modern factory owned by Korean carmaker Kia Motors looks set to beat its production goal of 285,000 SUVs, compact and family cars. Picture taken October 3, 2012. To match Insight AUTOS-CENTRALEUROPE/ Reuters

Elon Musk could have been right in his talk at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in October 2014. The Tesla and SpaceX founder warned that in the future, artificial intelligent robots would, one day, end the human race.

On Wednesday, Time reported that a caged robot in Volkswagen’s plant killed a 22-year-old male technicians. The victim was assembling the robot that grabs and configures car parts on Monday when the machine got hold of him and pushed him against a metal plate, according to Associated Press.

The unnamed Volkswagen employee died later from injuries caused by the robot that was programmed for specific tasks. The vehicle maker said the robot malfunctioned likely because of human error. Volkswagen said that while the firm uses some lightweight robots on its production line that work next to human employees, the killer robot was of a different type.

It is usually caged, and the unfortunate technician was working inside the cage when the robot grabbed and pushed him. There was a second Volkswagen employee outside the cage who witnessed the incident. The second man was unharmed.

Musk, who was belittled because of his warnings, was quoted by BusinessInsider as saying, “I don’t think anyone realizes how quickly artificial intelligence is advancing. Particularly if [the machine is] involved in recursive self-improvement … and its utility function is something that’s detrimental to humanity, then it will have a bad effect.”

However, at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January, University of California Berkeley Professors Ken Goldberg and Alison Gopnik pointed to seven reasons why Musk’s warning is baseless. The robotics and psychology experts said that machines are incapable of learning from random “life” experience, need humans to be smart, cannot make jokes, cannot be creative, cannot have new ideas and cannot play. However, Goldberg and Gopnik stressed that “stupid humans are way more dangerous than smart machines,” reports BusinessInsider.

German prosecutors are still deciding if they would lay charges and whom would they file a case against.

To contact the writer, email: vittoriohernandez@yahoo.com

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