Warehouse Robot Collapses After Working For 20 Hours Straight

Being a busy robot who works on the front lines of a product and must constantly fulfill deadlines can be challenging.

Being a robot that has been designed to last as long as possible makes it even more harsh.

Agility Robotics

Well, allow us to introduce Digit to you.

The test was performed on Digit, a motorized moving mess of bolts and wires.

And to be fair, Digit worked extremely hard for the 20 hours that it was hustling along and showed off all of its cool tricks and circuitry wizardry to the audience.

Agility Robotics

Unfortunately, those who saw the end of Digit's presentations certainly raised a few eyebrows.

Digit did, after all, appear to collapse. Almost out for the count.

However, the AI company claimed that jobs completed by the warehouse bot had a remarkable 99 percent success rate.

Agility Robotics

What a diligent little lad.

In any case, the robotics company emphasized that their multipurpose approach to robotics is what they use.

"We started with scientific breakthroughs and layered on top of that world-class engineering," they said in a press release.

"We approach everything with a focus on function. Our robots were designed from day one to do work and get the job done."

Agility Robotics posted the video on Twitter in April, saying the busy bot had performed over 20 hours of live demonstrations and had fallen a few times.

Liz Clinkenbeard, vice president of communications at Agility Robotics, told AP that they wanted to show how a cool robot like Digit will pick itself up and keep going when the going gets tough.

"We wanted to show that Digit did fall a couple of times, that it’s a normal part of any new technology, and it’s not a big deal," she said.

The majority of the time, a software flaw or a sensor malfunction causes Digit to fall.

"Sometimes it may need a repair; rarely something that takes more than 15-20 minutes,” she added.

"We do want to be careful about not over-humanizing a machine or ascribing intent.”

"While Digit looks something like a person, in reality, it is a computer that can do physical work, and it’s following a program."

Social media users have subsequently shared the footage of Digit tripping.

The video has given rise to some fairly crude jokes regarding the robot's well-being.

Due to the hard work and little pay, some social media posts about Digit alleged the resourceful AI committed suicide.

While Clinkenbeard acknowledged that they anticipated some jokes in response to the video, he said that "we don't think it's appropriate, ever, to joke about suicide."

On the bright side, the video did get some good responses as well.