Humans and bots may not be able to co-exist. A video doing the rounds on social media can be proof to it. On Sunday (April 23), the video appeared on Weibo showing a woman aggressively bashing a hospital robot with a club inside the lobby of the Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University in Jiangsu Province’s Xuzhou, as reported by Jiangxi Morning News.
According to the agency, the hospital’s initial evaluation said the woman was suffering from a mental illness.
A hospital employee cited by Boiling Point Video said that the reasons for her behaviour are unknown, and the hospital’s security department and information office were in contact with the individual involved. It also reported that police have joined the inquiry.
The woman can be seen in the footage striking the robot in the head, sending its parts flying. In reaction, staff members can be seen stepping back to take cover. The woman gestures and yells at the robot, then swings at its monitor.
She accuses the robot with her finger and shouts at it again before swiping at its side. She takes two more blows at the robot after pointing and shouting at spectators.
Despite the many dents and components scattered around the floor, the robot manages to swivel its head and lift its arms. The woman was last seen pulling off her jacket, perhaps in preparation for additional punishment before the video cuts off.
The Weibo account, Dalian is Good described the woman as wielding the “golden cudgel,” a reference to the magical rod used by the Monkey King in the Chinese classical novel “Journey to the West.”
Songpinganq, a Twitter user, noted on Monday (April 24) that robots are increasingly being used to make doctor and medical appointments in China, leaving very few nurses to assist patients. “Many find it a frustrating process,” claimed the post’s author.
Why China has edge on AI?
Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes lag behind more democratic and inclusive nations in nurturing cutting-edge, creative technology such as robotics and clean energy. Because of competing interests, artificial intelligence may be an exception, at least in China, as per The Harvard Gazette.
At a recent dean’s conference on social science insights into the emergent global power, Harvard Economics Professor David Yang discussed the outsized success of China’s AI sector. He highlighted a recent US government list of companies generating the highest accurate facial recognition technology as evidence. The top five were all Chinese firms.
“Autocratic governments would like to be able to predict the whereabouts, thoughts, and behaviors of citizens,” Yang said. “And AI is fundamentally a technology for prediction.” This creates an alignment of purpose between AI technology and autocratic rulers, he argued.
Because AI relies significantly on data, and autocratic governments are known to gather vast amounts of it, this benefits companies with Chinese government contracts, who may then use official data to enhance commercial ventures, he noted.
