The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), together with the Association for the Advancement of Automation (A3), presented the long-awaited update of safety standards for industrial robots. The hundreds-of-pages document describes in detail how robots should behave in order not to offend their human colleagues. It seems that the era of carefree relationships between humans and machines has finally passed.

The new standards pay special attention to collaborative robots, which work side by side with people without protective cages. Now each such robot must be equipped with a force and speed monitoring system so that accidental contact with a person does not leave bruises the size of a waffle iron. I wonder if there are penalties for robots that violate these rules?

Special attention is paid to risk assessment, a process that must now be carried out for each robot application. This means that engineers will have to prove that their creation does not pose a danger to others. It seems that robots are perceived as naughty pets that need to be kept on a leash at all times.

Interestingly, the standards now take cybersecurity into account — apparently, developers are seriously concerned that hackers can make industrial robots dance macarena or, worse, work too fast. Although, to be honest, it's hard to imagine a cybercriminal who hacks a factory robot for the sake of producing nuts for free.

The funniest aspect of the new rules is the requirement for ergonomics. It turns out that robots should not only be safe, but also convenient to use for humans. Apparently, the next step is mandatory etiquette courses for artificial intelligence, where they will be taught how to properly serve tools and not disturb people during their lunch break.

Critics have already noted that compliance with the new standards will significantly increase the cost of implementing robots. It seems that the safety of human fingers turned out to be more expensive than originally thought. Although, if you think about it, it's still cheaper than paying for lawsuits from injured employees.

However, it must be admitted that standards are long overdue, especially given the growing popularity of collaborative robots. One can only hope that robots will perceive the new rules as a concern for their safety, and not as discrimination based on species.