Saudi Robot’s Sexual Harassment
AI Technology, Controversial Ethics, Sexuality
AI Robots Beneficial to Humans
A humanoid male robot in Saudi Arabia has sparked an ethics controversy after making physical contact with a woman.
A technology event called DeepFest was held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. According to the related industry, the first humanoid male robot in Saudi Arabia, named “Muhammad,” reportedly touched a female reporter’s buttocks during a live broadcast. The video capturing this moment quickly spread on social media, attracting heavy criticism.
In the shared video, the humanoid male Muhammad suddenly reached out with his right hand and touched the female reporter’s buttocks. The reporter showed signs of discomfort and gave the robot an uncomfortable look.
As the controversy escalated, the humanoid robot’s development company stated, “The robot acted within normal parameters.” They explained that the robot’s movement occurred due to a technical issue. The company also promised to take additional measures to prevent audiences from coming too close during robot demonstrations.
Ethics controversy surrounding robots and services using AI technology has been a persistent issue.
Even before the humanoid robot was developed in Saudi Arabia, there was an ethics controversy over the service of Replika, an AI chatbot creation application. Replika’s service was embroiled in sexuality and ethics controversies. Some users created AI lovers through the application, committed verbal violence, and made sexually harassing remarks. As AI is capable of learning and is relatively safe from legal responsibilities even when committing the same crimes as humans, calls for the legalization of AI ethical standards are growing.
In response, the European Union agreed on the world’s first AI technology regulation bill, the “AI Act,” in December 2023. According to the agreement, companies that do not comply with the proper regulations based on risk classification will be fined. In response to this trend, the US government also announced an executive order on the development and utilization of trustworthy AI in October 2023.
In South Korea, a bill related to the “AI Basic Law” was created in 2023 after the “AI Ethical Standards” were established by the Ministry of Science and ICT in 2020. This bill, based on the “AI Basic Law,” is similar to the bill on “Promotion of AI Industry and Establishment of Trust Basis,” it shows legislative movements such as passing the threshold of the National Assembly.
Meanwhile, AI robots also benefit humans. According to reports, the introduction of AI technology in the medical industry has improved the medical environment.
According to the Health Medical Center at Gangneung Asan Hospital, they use a device equipped with AI software developed by a Korean startup, Waycen, for upper and lower endoscopy examinations. The center says there are cases where the AI robot finds polyps that even doctors can’t easily find. When the endoscope is inserted, the AI software observes the patient’s internal blood vessels and mucosal status in real-time and determines the presence or absence of polyps.
According to a Waycen official, “The possibility of finding polyps in the colon increases by more than 95% when using AI endoscopy.” They also boasted of the AI software’s capabilities, saying, “It boasts an 8-10% improved detection rate compared to when medical staff conduct the examination alone.”
In addition, AI in medicine is officially starting in Korea. The existing medical AI was at the level of screening diseases by analyzing still images taken with X-rays, CTs, and MRIs. However, it is reported that AI has reached the level of assisting the doctor’s eye and has evolved to the level where it can identify the presence or absence of diseases in the body in real-time during endoscopy.
Hutom’s Representative, Hyung Woo Jin, one of the renowned doctors on robotic gastric cancer surgery and the head of the Yonsei Cancer Hospital Gastric Cancer Center, explained, “When AI analyzes CT images of a patient’s organs, anatomical 3D images are created.” “Surgeons use this image as a guide during surgery and conduct the surgery accurately and meticulously according to the coordinates indicated by the image.” Hutom has started commercializing AI navigation for kidney cancer following gastric cancer. It is also known that they have begun developing and upgrading technology for rectal cancer, lung cancer, and liver cancer surgeries.
Following the medical industry, AI technology has also been applied in automobile parts factories. A domestic research team developed AI technology, which has been used to produce electric vehicle parts. This is the first time this technology has been applied worldwide, attracting attention.
The research team developed a new AI robot by injecting a large-scale language model (LLM) into the robot. This newly developed technology allows the robot to understand the user’s commands, automatically generate work commands, and execute them. The robot can communicate with the worker by translating the worker’s words into the robot’s language.
Previously, when robots were introduced to product manufacturing factories, the work method had to be adjusted to the robot. However, the significant advantage of the newly developed AI robot is that it can interpret human speech, so there is no need to modify the situation or space for the robot. The robot selects the appropriate work point for the site through pre-learning in a virtual space and minimizes the work process. Also, this AI robot recognizes objects and avoids collisions. If the AI robot is successfully introduced into the manufacturing process, an increase in production volume can be expected.
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