Thanks to Engadget, who reads CNet News, who read Matier and Ross (we've given up), we find out that Waldo, a medicine-delivering helper robot at the UCSF Medical Center went bonkers, zooming down a hall into a treatment room and scaring the living daylights out of a patient with cancer (which is saying something, since once you have cancer, what the hell else is there to be afraid of, really?):
At the end of their rounds, the robots are supposed to roll into the basement pharmacy for refills.But Tuesday, Waldo shot past the pharmacy and barged uninvited into the examination room in the radiation oncology department, where -- according to an anonymous caller -- a doctor was examining a cancer patient.
According to the caller, Waldo wouldn't leave, and the startled doctor and patient felt obliged to flee the room.
What's not pointed out is that Waldo's two mechanical companions are named Elvis and Lisa Marie. It's one things to trust a robot named Waldo with Xanax and Ritalin, but who the f**k gives a robot named Elvis prescription drugs to dispense? Why do we have a feeling that the next report will be about a helper robot found dead sitting on the can in one of the Medical Center bathrooms?
Uncredited photo via Engadget.