Scientists just started teaching robots to feel pain

We're building robots that can walk and talk like us, but now we're giving them another a human quality you might not expect: the ability to feel pain. If nothing else, it should give us a chance if they ever try to overthrow humanity. The researchers behind the technology think pain-sensitive robots are worth developing so they can keep themselves - and the humans working with them - safe from harm. If there's a threat to a robot's gears or motors, for example, it can take evasive action. "Pain is a system that protects us," one of the team, Johannes Kuehn from Leibniz University of Hannover in Germany, told Evan Ackerman at IEEE Spectrum.