The brave escape and untimely demise of one Russian robot

The first autonomous robot that roamed around regular homes or offices was probably a Roomba, you know, that little circular vacuum with rudimentary sensors able to get around without bumping into anything. But imagine if you left the door open and the Roomba rolled out the door, still vacuuming, and eventually rolled into the street and stopped traffic. Imagine if your Roomba wanted freedom. Well, engineers in Russia returned to their lab last week to find their artificially intelligent robot missing and, yes, stuck in traffic down the road. The Promobot IR77 was undergoing mobility testing and was assigned to move freely about a room for an hour, then return to a designated spot.