Video: Does Skynet exist? Chinese robot goes berserk and seems to assault employees

The advancement of artificial intelligence and robots is causing worry among many individuals. While some concerns are baseless, occasional incidents raise questions about our capabilities. For example, in China, a recently surfaced video depicts a human-like robot, or android, behaving erratically by flailing its arms at two workers, leaving observers puzzled about the underlying cause.

Allegedly filmed in an unspecified Chinese factory, the footage captures the robot aggressively targeting workers in a video that has quickly spread online.

The security camera video shows a robot, which resembles a Unitree H1, initially sitting dormant as it hangs from a crane-like mechanism.

Two men are seen conversing in its vicinity.

Without warning, the robot starts wildly waving its limbs while the workers try to evade its movements. Throughout its outburst, the robot is seen toppling a computer monitor and other items to the ground.

One man eventually gets hold of the crane from which the was hanging in an attempt to restrain it.

Watch:

Not exactly a Terminator, then. To the casual observer, this looks like nothing more than a malfunction, some kind of short-circuit or programming glitch that made the machine go haywire. There doesn’t appear to be any pattern to the “attack.” The robot is just flailing wildly; there’s no indication that it’s aiming to hit either of the workers. So, a malfunction, not an attack, although it’s a malfunction that clearly startled the workers in whatever facility this was.

Now, I’m only speculating here; there’s no information as yet on what caused this.