History Lesson – Anniversary of the First Human Death by Robot
On January 25, 1979 Robert Williams, a Ford Motors employee, was killed by an industrial robot in the first documented case of a robot killing a human. A robot built to gather supplies from a storage room slammed its arm into Williams, killing him instantly. Although the situation seems nefarious, the unfortunate death of Mr. Williams was not caused by the robot suddenly turning Skynet on but rather due to a lack of safeguards in the storage facility.
By the way, you can buy your own industrial robots from an old Chrysler factory in Delaware if you feel like risking your life or if you want to create a makeshift thrill ride of death (below).
First execution of a human by a robot? Well, kinda…
::proof sent by SonofNero::
SonofNero sent in a link to a story that happened in Australia in 2008, so it's a little old, but still an interesting topic.
It is interesting because it involves a robot actually killing someone. That's right, a robot murdered a human in cold blood. Why didn't this get more press? Mainly because the murderbot was being controlled by a man. Francis Tovey of Canberra, Australia had built the robot in response to his family members constantly demanding that he move into an assisted care home. All of their requests made Tovay suicial, so he went to his computer looking for answers.
...Tovey scoured the Internet for information on making a robot capable for firing a semi-automatic gun pointed at his head.





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