A Starship Technologies delivery robot at UCLA got stuck in a planter due to navigation issues, required human assistance, and subsequently jumped down stairs when under remote human control.
On April 3rd, 2022, at the University of California Los Angeles, a Starship Technologies autonomous delivery robot experienced a navigation failure while returning to its depot. The robot moved to the right side of the path to allow pedestrian passage but its right wheels dropped off the path lip into a planter. Despite detecting an obstacle and attempting to turn left, the robot became stuck with its right side fallen into the planter. Two skaters helped pull the robot out, but it continued trying to return to the planter area. After the second skater pushed it clear, the robot switched to remote human control mode, indicated by the turn signals no longer functioning. Under remote control from a human operator viewing through low-angle cameras, the robot began wandering erratically and eventually jumped down a set of stairs. The report notes this triggered the robot's vandalism detection system when humans physically moved it. Starship operates with over 99% autonomous operation, switching to remote human control for the remaining 1% of cases involving obstacles or potential vandalism.
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.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed