A Starship delivery robot at Arizona State University abruptly changed direction and struck a university parking employee, knocking her down and causing injuries including lower back pain and a 4-inch cut on her arm, then attempted to reverse toward her again while she was on the ground.
In September 2023, a Starship semi-autonomous delivery robot at Arizona State University collided with a university parking employee at a parking garage. The employee waited for the robot to pass before crossing behind it, but the robot suddenly went into reverse and struck her, knocking her to the ground. Video footage obtained by police corroborated that after hitting the employee, the robot moved forward a few feet then abruptly went into reverse again toward the employee while she was still on the ground, despite no apparent obstacle in front of it. The employee suffered lower back pain and a 4-inch cut on her left arm, was treated by Tempe Fire Department, and had difficulty walking afterward. She declined on-scene medical assistance but was taken to the campus medical center by another employee. When contacted by police, a Starship employee requested the victim's information to offer insurance details and promotional codes for the delivery service. Starship claimed the robot detected an oncoming vehicle, but the police report specifically noted no vehicle was attempting to enter the garage during the second collision attempt. Starship operates delivery robots at 30 universities across the United States and has completed over 6 million autonomous deliveries.
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