Recently, a robot working for the Gumi City Council in South Korea was recently found unresponsive at the bottom of a two-meter staircase. Locals are labelling it country’s first robot “suicide”.

• High Usage of Robots in South Korea: The International Federation of Robotics says that South Korea has one of the highest robot densities in the world, with one industrial robot for every ten human employees. 
• Earlier Such Case: This is not the first time a robot has met an untimely end. In 2017, a security robot named Steve working in Washington, DC reportedly “died by suicide” by drowning in a fountain. 
  • However, on further investigation, it was found out that the robot had dived in the water body after skidding on a loose brick surface.
• Implications of this Robot Suicide: The robot’s sudden demise has stirred up a mix of emotions and opinions in local media and online forums. 
  • This incident raises questions about the robot’s workload and broader implications of robot integration.
  • It may never fully understand the mechanical mind, one thing is certain – this incident has sparked an important conversation about the future of robots in our society.
• On Granting Rights: 
  • Eligible for Rights: Some experts believe “a robot should have consciousness, intentionality, rationality, personhood, autonomy, and sentience to be eligible for rights”.
  • Eligible for Rites: Granting rights is not the only way to address the moral status of robots. Envisioning robots as rites bearers and not rights bearers could work better.

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Conclusion

• This debate is unlikely to die in a hurry, as AI-powered robots become more intelligent, and increasingly do more human-like tasks, there will be more clamor for them to be treated the same as humans. It’s our “emotional connect” that will dictate a lot of this reasoning.

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