A robot called 'Little Chubby' at a Chinese tech fair smashed through a glass booth and injured a visitor after a staff member accidentally pressed the wrong button, causing the robot to move in reverse and then speed forward for 10 seconds with its obstacle avoidance function disabled.
The incident occurred on November 17, 2016 at the 18th China Hi-Tech Fair in Shenzhen, China. Little Chubby, an educational robot designed for children aged 4-12 and manufactured by Beijing-based company Evolver, was demonstrating its projection capabilities when a staff member accidentally pressed the wrong button. This caused the robot to move in reverse instead of forward. The robot's automatic obstacle detection and avoidance function had been turned off at the time, causing the machine to go out of control and speed forward for approximately 10 seconds before smashing into a glass wall. The impact shattered the glass booth, and flying glass fragments cut a visitor's ankle. The injured person was taken to the hospital and received stitches. Little Chubby is sold in China for 9,988 yuan ($1,460) for the basic version and 12,988 yuan for the advanced version, with over 3,000 units sold across China. Chinese media reported this as the first case in China of a robot injuring a human. The robot is marketed as a professional tutor and child's playmate for teaching English and general knowledge.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that fail to perform reliably or effectively under varying conditions, exposing them to errors and failures that can have significant consequences, especially in critical applications or areas that require moral reasoning.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed