20 Seconds to Comply; 17+ Years to Get It Wrong. From “Roboguard” to “Steve”!

Recently, news broke of a robot security guard lovingly nicknamed “Steve” who drowned in a fountain in the lobby of the building he was sworn to protect. The various Tweets and news articles jumped all over it, with articles anthropomorphizing Steve and headlines such as “Security guard robot ends it all by throwing itself into a watery grave“.

No surprise, but workers in the building set up a “touching” memorial for Steve on his charging plate, further anthropomorphizing him. It’s hard not to care for and feel sorry for poor Steve, who likely roamed an empty building with modern access controls and no real threat, other than a wayward janitor who lost his RFID badge.

While the Internet is enjoying and mourning poor Steve, everyone seems to forget about old ‘Roboguard’! Unfortunately, like most media outlets, even “New Scientist” doesn’t preserve links and evidence like a scientist would. These asshats don’t even clearly list a date on their articles (posted to ISN on Aug 31, 2000). Thanks to the Internet Archive, if we go back far enough we see the article but without pictures, likely because “New Scientist” didn’t want to preserve anything back then, like they don’t today. I don’t think “science” means what they think it means.

Not sure if Asimov would be laughing or rolling in his grave.