The'Promobot' (promotional robot) from the company of the same name recently made another attempt to escape its testing grounds, and its creators now believe the bot's memory has to be replaced to remove the machine's "love for freedom." "We've cross-flashed the memory of the robot with serial number IR77 twice, yet it continues to persistently move towards the exit," Ura media outlet cites Promobot's co-founder, Oleg Kivokurtsev, as saying. He noted that other robots don't act the same way and generally toe the line by moving along their planned routes. "We're considering recycling the IR77 because our clients hiring it might not like that specific feature," Kivokurtsev added. The IR77 robot escaped from a testing area in Perm, a city not far from the Urals, and made it on to a busy junction, baffling passersby but also disturbing traffic, the Promobot company reported on June 14.

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.