A 70-year-old woman was taken to hospital for examination and treatment after being startled by a robot walking along the street in Patane district, operated by a tutorial centre for promotion purposes, last Thursday, the Public Security Police (PSP) said yesterday.
The police said that it was the first incident of its kind recorded in Macau involving a human and a robot.
The Public Security Police told public broadcaster TDM yesterday that the incident occurred on the pavement in Rua Sul do Patane (沙梨頭南街) at around 9 p.m. that day. When the elderly woman had stopped walking and was using her smartphone, she suddenly realised that “something” was closely behind her, causing her to be startled.
According to the TDM report, the police said that “there was no physical contact” between the woman and the robot, and she did not sustain any injuries in the incident. However, she told the police that she felt unwell after being startled by the robot, and asked to be taken to hospital for examination and treatment.
The TDM report said that the woman was discharged after examination and treatment, adding that she decided not to file a complaint against those responsible for the incident.
According to the TDM report, the police confirmed that the robot is owned by a tutorial centre in the neighbourhood where the incident occurred, and was being operated by a local man in his fifties.
The man, according to the report, told the police that he was testing the robot, with the objective of further improving its operation, to use it for his centre’s commercial promotion activities in the future.
Video clips showing “an argument between the woman and the robot” are being circulated on social media. The video clips also show several police officers “escorting” the robot after the incident.
The report said that the police have reminded the man operating the robot to be more careful when operating robots in public spaces so as to avoid endangering or frightening pedestrians.
According to the clips, the woman shouted in Cantonese at the robot: “You’re making my heart race! You’ve got plenty to do, so what’s the point of messing around with this? Are you freaking crazy?”
The head of the Study Hard Education Centre, Mak Kin Choi (麥健才), told TDM yesterday that the centre had scheduled three promotional activities using robots last week, including the one in Patane district on Thursday. Mak said that similar promotional activities with robots had been carried out over the past six months in areas including the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ruins of St. Paul’s, and Cotai Strip, generally receiving positive feedback.
Mak also told TDM that he accompanied the elderly woman to the hospital that night. After she was discharged from the hospital, he accompanied her home in the early hours of the next day.
A robot appearing to be similar to the one involved in last week’s incident, Unitree G1, retails for 85,000 yuan (99,680 patacas), according to the Unitree company shop on Taobao last night.
This photo downloaded from Facebook last night shows the Study Hard Education Centre’s robot being escorted by police officers away from the site of the incident in the peninsula’s Patane district last Thursday.
