Drunk Man Arrested For Assaulting A Robot

A drunk guy in a SoftBank cellphone store in Japan was unhappy with a clerk's attitude ... so he kicked a robot, he admitted to cops. Not just any robot, but a four-foot-high Pepper "humanoid" robot, whose development SoftBank funded, Gizmodo reports.


The robot is designed to detect human emotions, so it may have seen the attack coming. As the site notes, Japan is increasingly using robot "staff" at stores, hotels, and airports, but it's not clear if this robot was actually "working" or just being displayed. The 60-year-old man (who did not injure the clerk he was angry with) was arrested after the Sunday incident, Japan's Times reports.

The robot now moves more slowly and may have a damaged internal computer system