The news of a Russian-made robot called the Promobot escaping from a laboratory on June 15, 2016 has created a lot of buzz.
According to the story, the robot managed to run away from its supervisors and has created traffic congestion on a suburban street of Russia. However, NHVoice reports that the incident of a runaway robot seems to have been faked in order to gain viral accomplishment. The complete scenario appeared to be a perfect publicity stunt involving a little robot, footage from a Russian dashcam and uncontrollable machinery.
According to the story, after the little robot has been examined in the lab located in the city of Perm in Eastern Russia, an engineer failed to lock the security door of the lab subsequent to the examination. The Promobot ran away and landed on the street.
The BBC reported that the Promobot, was able to travel about 164 feet from the lab. Then, the robot got stranded on the road after its battery got completely discharged.
Several spectators, along with police officials were attracted by the scene. After nearly 45 minutes the company that built the robot eventually managed to locate it.
Researchers at Promobot laboratories explained that the Promobot is a prototype for a robot designed to interact with humans by giving directions and answering questions. At the moment of the incident the robot was learning automatic movement algorithms and was undergoing tests for its new independent movement feature.
However, due to certain logical discrepancies, the story seems to be staged. For instance, all the videos and images show that the Promobot's face and screen are on, while the company asserts that robot was stranded on the road due to dead battery,
Another discrepancy spotted in the "official" story is the fact that the lane was shot down by the police, awaiting for the Promobot engineers to come and solve the issue. However, is the robot has been off due to a discharged battery, then the police could simply have simply moved it away from the road.
According to Mashable, even some Russian media is skeptical regarding the robot's escaping story. This is more likely just a clever marketing stunt of the Promobot's developer company in order to garner attention for the humanoid robot.
