r/news • u/AudibleNod • 1d ago
Police seize robot that groped 16-year-old girl, investigate whether young men were at the controls
https://apnews.com/article/robot-germany-sexual-assault-cologne-bf171b1697bd9a7119424040a303af221.8k
u/mauthor619 1d ago
A fresh hell for humanity
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u/Fast_Raven 1d ago
Every day I see more and more why Will Smith's character hated artificial intelligence and robots in I Robot
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u/WoolooOfWallStreet 1d ago
Isn’t it kinda ironic that a video of Will Smith eating spaghetti has been marked as a turning point for all this?
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u/Germane_Corsair 1d ago
Except it was humans behind this. It’d be like hating screwdrivers because a person stabbed another with one.
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u/KazumaKat 1d ago
Well... I mean even way back during the ancient greek times, they held trials against an axe...
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u/BehavioralSink 1d ago edited 1d ago
And here I was thinking it was going to be bad enough when my toaster tells me I have 20 seconds to comply…
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u/copyrider 1d ago
Good to see we’re going after the robots since they’ve already caught every human sexual predator. FFS
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u/AudibleNod 1d ago
Cologne police spokesman Christoph Bermel said the two male teenagers have not been charged but are considered suspects, and investigators were examining whether the robot’s movements were preprogrammed or controlled in real time.
A 16-year-old and 19-year-old filmed the alleged assault.
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u/Totheendofsin 1d ago
Should it matter whether it was controlled in real time or pre-programmed
Either way they used a robot to assault a girl
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u/amateur_mistake 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think it could probably have some effect on determining whether the act was premeditated.
edit: corrected "per-meditated"
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u/Telvin3d 1d ago
Yes?
“Robot programmed to do a pre-set routine, which happened to contact a lady in an unfortunate way” is vastly different from “robot remote controlled to grope someone”
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u/Acceptable_Put9737 23h ago
Harvey Weinstein cries in prison realizing that AI can generate movies AND grope women now
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u/LurksAroundHere 17h ago
All those rich sick fucks realizing it's not just the poors getting replaced by AI.
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u/TRB4 1d ago
We’re getting even closer to building the Robo Chomo
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u/Away-Concentrate-946 1d ago
"You start by building a regular robot and molesting it and just hope it continues the cycle."
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u/WoolooOfWallStreet 1d ago
My favorite comment said something to the effect of “Since The Rock has a clause in his contracts to always win, I assume he won the competition”
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u/LuciusLuscinia 1d ago
The robot, said to be 120 centimeters (about 3 ft 11 inches) tall, was dressed in a white tank top, black sweatpants and wearing a gold chain and sunglasses. It also had what appears to be a fake mustache.
Sounds like a couple people I know actually.
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u/AudibleNod 1d ago
A fake mustache?
As opposed to a robot's real mustache?
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u/LuciusLuscinia 1d ago
I suppose if it was, like, built into the design, it would be a "real" robot mustache? Or perhaps it was conspicuously fake.
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u/ToastAndASideOfToast 1d ago
If it was a real robot mustache, it would be robot hair. A fake robot mustache might be made from other sources, like goat or yak.
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u/DinkleMutz 1d ago
Oh fuck this killed me. Enjoy that juicy uparrow or whatever.
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u/AerieDapper6384 1d ago
Never type this sentence ever again jesus christ
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u/PiDigitsOfPi 1d ago
Dang, robots are taking everyone's jobs now, even the perverts no longer have job security.
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u/MenacingGummy 1d ago
Jesus women are never going to get a break.
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u/Planeswalker2814 23h ago
I saw someone on Facebook defending the robot. No wonder women choose the bear.
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u/petit_cochon 1d ago
I will absolutely wreck a robot with a quickness. Waterboard its little CPU. Shit, I wish a robot would try me. It would be cathartic to smash it to fucking pieces.
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u/Beginning_Book_2382 16h ago
Ikr? I was just going to comment that it seems like it's every day there is a new headline about someone doing something terrible to a woman.
This has been a terrible past few years for women
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u/StupidMastiff 1d ago
That's fucking crazy. I hope that it's treated as the case of sexual assault that it is, and not as something lesser.
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u/maceman10006 1d ago
Some slick lawyer is gonna get the men off if it’s true. Gonna have to be a new law written that you can’t use robots to sexually assault people.
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u/StupidMastiff 1d ago
I don't see how it's any different than using a stick to poke someone in their genitals or something, but I fear you might be right about them getting off because it's somehow different.
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u/Overbaron 1d ago
Considering forced oral penetration being considered rape is relatively recent, it’ll be a landmark case for sure
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u/amateur_mistake 1d ago
At least in the US, there were a number of states that only considered forced penetration with a penis to be rape (although, a lot of laws also don't actually call it rape. The will use various things like "sexual assault/abuse" or whatever. And some of them have separate laws for if you sexually abuse someone with a tool. It varies a lot.)
So people that used their fingers or a tool would get different charges. No idea what it's like in Germany though.
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u/squeezyscorpion 1d ago
they put this robot in a wife beater and chain bro i’m crying
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u/Fecal_thoroughfare 1d ago
Also has 4 robot children he last saw over 12 months ago after being ejected for heckling one of them at one of their little league games.
Come on! You throw like a pitching machine set to low!
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u/pribnow 1d ago
Ah awesome someone created RoboChomo
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u/Lil-tay-the-god 1d ago
How do you even make a child molesting robot?
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u/imspooky 1d ago
First you molest it. Then you hope it continues the cycle
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u/Lil-tay-the-god 1d ago
Dear lord almighty
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u/serotoninwya420 1d ago
Does anyone feel like we're going to start seeing towns or neighborhoods with sweeping bans on certain technologies? I think I would live in a 2005 neighborhood in a heartbeat.
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u/Planeandaquariumgeek 1d ago
More realistically what’s gonna happen is Congress is gonna mandate that everyone have to show ID and have their face analyzed by AI to get online in the name of “saving the kids”. Humanoid robots aren’t gonna take off, first of all they’re ridiculously expensive, and second of all they’re inefficient to say the very least
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u/CCPBot_420 1d ago
Yeah, 2005 is in a good spot. In fact, I would give it up to 2010 - 2012. Smart phones, effective maps, well-functioning online infrastructure. You can do SOME online banking functions. But algorithmic social media wasn't intertwined into our lives.
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u/Bibbity_Boppity_BOOO 1d ago edited 19h ago
Social media peaked in 2010-2011 tech in general peaked in 2018 culturally.
Edit: subtract 1 year for social media upon reconsidering
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u/CCPBot_420 1d ago
Yeah, 2012 was about the tail-end of when people would make parties in university as Facebook events. By 2013, I remember only one friend creating it for a house party and it already seemed out of place... even though I couldn't put my finger on it at the time.
This, compared to 2007-2008, where I'd sometimes have whole weekends of Facebook events and parties in late high school - early university. I remember checking the attendee list to see if there was any girl that I liked. Then, if you'd hit it off with someone, they would look you up on the event list and add you (or viceversa). So there was that duality between meeting people in real life and then connecting online. It was a bit easier to date, or agree to meet at another event / party in the future.
By the early 2010s, it was becoming rare for the event thing. People were also hopping over to Instagram. Then Facebook came in and bought it.
Now in my 30s, I barely get invited to shit. Or, everyone is too busy to agree on a date for a get-together.
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u/SgathTriallair 1d ago
Legally it should be the same as if they used a stick to do it. Just because it wasn't their actual hand doesn't mean they didn't do it.
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u/fxkatt 1d ago
The robot and the two young men’s mobile phones were confiscated.
I think the mobile phones will be of great help as to. intent to the bewildered police.
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u/UniversityStrong5725 1d ago
If a drone piloted by a civilian operator strikes a random person, they’re gonna treat it as a case of physical assault done remotely via an aerial apparatus. Why should any sexual assault case be treated differently if it’s also done remotely, as crazy as it sounds? These men need to be held to the fullest consequences of their actions, not allowed to pass it off on a robot in court
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u/theronin7 1d ago
My guess is the police in question simply don't know how this Robot was operated. And before they bring these boys up on charges (which they almost certainly deserve) they are looking into the case.
If these boys instructed the robot to molest someone, or remotely controlled it, then yes they are guilty of sexual harassment. If these boys simply had a robot around with them and through some poor programing or messed up AI decided to molest someone - thats also bad, but its going to be a very different conversation, and likely directed at the company releasing molest-o-bots.
but to be clear, almost certainly these kids just remotely controlled this thing.
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u/Singular23 1d ago
The young men were at the controls. There are not groping robots just yet lol
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u/xX_7HR0W-4W4Y_Xx 1d ago
Yes there are. It only makes sense that the first robots would be rape-bots; look at who's at their forefront of robotics right now.
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u/ang3lofsnow 1d ago
Just an FYI Boston Dynamics went under during covid. No one bought the murder dogs.
They are owned by Hyundai and the Koreans now.
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u/Buddhadevine 1d ago
I’m tired yall. Women and girls get it bad enough from actual human men and now they got to worry about men behind robots assaulting us? Sigh…
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u/Capital_Past69 1d ago
"a robot allegedly touched a 16-year-old girl’s buttocks and made thrusting movements"
welcome to our new world
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u/Fecal_thoroughfare 1d ago
Picturing a robot version of Duffman. Thrusting in the general direction of the suspects. Oh yeah
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u/Exact_Patience_9767 1d ago
The precursor for these boys to be hired at the Trump and Elon admin to create the billions of robots they planned on making in the near future.
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u/CharlieKonR 1d ago
In the DoD … you just know Hegseth is more interested in Groper robots than Killer robots.
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u/deschain_19195 1d ago
I've gone 40 years without sexual assaulting anyone it's not that fucking hard guys
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u/PinkBabyCat98 1d ago
Gotta love how quickly new tech turns into "used to prey on and harm women and girls"
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u/Hay_Fever_at_3_AM 1d ago
If you grope a woman while wearing gloves does it not count?
And what does it matter if it's pre-programmed or not?
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u/jtobiasbond 1d ago
Because the movements might have been programmed specifically as "move here, do this" and it was just unlucky that she was there at the moment.
This does not seem to be the case from the evidence, but needs to be ruled out.
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u/mynameisnotsparta 1d ago
And the only way to stop this from hopefully becoming an issue again is to put both of these assholes in jail.
COLOGNE, Germany (AP) — German authorities opened an investigation into possible sexual harassment after a robot controlled by two young men touched the buttocks of a 16-year-old girl and made thrusting movements toward her, police said.
Police in the western city of Cologne responded after the incident overnight Saturday to Sunday in which the robot’s suspected 16-year-old owner and a 19-year-old companion were said to have filmed the alleged assault.
They were said to have streamed the incident and commentated on it online.
Cologne police spokesman Christoph Bermel said the two male teenagers have not been charged but are considered suspects, and investigators were examining whether the robot’s movements were preprogrammed or controlled in real time.
Police were unfamiliar with this type of incident, he said.
“We have not been aware of this phenomenon so far,” Bermel told The Associated Press, saying it was “new territory for us.”
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u/seanmg 1d ago
Isn't it sexual harassment regardless of who was controlling it?
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u/misogichan 1d ago
Depends on whether it was manually controlled (or pre-programmed to do that), or pre-programmed and the pre-programming was not designed to have that happen.
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u/O_PLUTO_O 1d ago
The programmer should still be liable in that case. I’m tired of hearing people saying tech has a mind of its own. It does what it’s told to do. Someone is responsible.
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u/hamoc10 1d ago
Who would you charge, though? You need to find the person controlling it.
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u/GlowAndBehold 1d ago
Has humanity actually come to this point? This is honestly just gross. Also it shouldn’t matter if it was preprogrammed or not. They did it with the intent of sexually harassing a girl.
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u/Joesepp 1d ago
Should’ve known one of the first things humans would do with robots is sexually assault women
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u/DiamondDot 1d ago
The first thing men would do. Women would not do this. I find it really odd you differentiate humans and women, btw.
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u/GirlNumber20 1d ago
whether young men were at the controls
Is there really any doubt...?
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u/Otherwise_Stable_925 1d ago
Cologne police spokesman Christoph Bermel said the two male teenagers have not been charged but are considered suspects, and investigators were examining whether the robot’s movements were preprogrammed or controlled in real time.
This is something they're going to have to figure out does not matter. The boys sexually assaulted someone. They should be charged.
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u/ShutUpForMe 1d ago
Crazy how the potential harms arent much worse than the delivery robots,
Surveillance state cameras about + hacked delivery robots can probably do as much harm with added privacy
Also this robot vs human violence if you haven’t seen this already https://youtube.com/shorts/_iSgt8Abwbo?si=U5Jo2sun0Hc5a7HT
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u/Igmuhota 1d ago
We were promised flying cars, and instead we got groping robots.