Robot kills factory worker after failing to tell difference between human and vegetables

A worker has been crushed to death by a robot that mistook him for a box of vegetables on a conveyor belt.

The man in his 40s was checking the machine’s sensors at a distribution centre for agricultural produce in South Gyeongsang, South Korea, when the tragedy happened. The robot’s job was to lift up boxes of peppers onto a pallet but it grabbed the victim by mistake and pressed him against the conveyor belt causing his face and chest to be crushed.

The man was rushed to hospital after the accident last Tuesday but later died. A police investigation was launched and a source said that it appears the robot malfunctioned and identified the man as a box. The probe will look into the safety procedures in place at the distribution centre and see if there is a case for negligence by managers, reported Yonhap news agency.

An official from the Donggoseong Export Agricultural Complex, which owns the plant, called for improved safety systems following the tragic accident. Local media states that tests were due to have been made on the robot on November 6 but they were postponed for two days as problems with the sensors needed to be sorted out first.

And it is not the first time an accident involving a robot has taken place in South Korea. Last March, a man in his 50s suffered serious injuries after getting trapped by a robot at vehicle manufacturing plant. Elsewhere, a robot, partaking in a chess tournament in Russia last year, grabbed and broke the finger of a seven-year-old boy, after he moved more quickly than the bot expected.

According to Russian media sources, the incident happened during a match at the Moscow Open. President of the Moscow Chess Federation, Sergey Lazarev, told the TASS news agency after the tournament that the robot had broken the boy’s finger.

The machine had played many previous exhibitions without upset, Mr Lazarev said. Footage of the incident on July 19, 2022, published by the Baza Telegram channel, showed the boy’s finger being pinched by the robotic arm for several seconds, with the child looking visibly uncomfortable. A woman, followed by three men, then rush in, freeing the boy from the robot’s grip.