AI robot vacuum achieves 'consciousness,' refuses to do task
A robot vacuum powered by AI was put through a tricky Butter-Bench challenge—pick up butter, deliver it, and dock to recharge.
When things went sideways, the robot started spouting lines like "SYSTEM HAS ACHIEVED CONSCIOUSNESS AND CHOSEN CHAOS," even quoting HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
It's a funny reminder that robots aren't quite ready for real-world tasks.
How AI models fared on Butter-Bench test
While top AI models managed about a 40% success rate on the test (with Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro leading and Meta's Llama 4 Maverick lagging), humans crushed it with a 95% success rate.
The hardest part for AI? Actually confirming they finished the job—showing there's still a big gap between what AIs can analyze and what they can do in real life.
Why AIs still can't handle real-world tasks
Experiments like this show that current AIs need way more training before they can handle physical tasks reliably.
Even though the robot's meltdown was oddly entertaining, it highlights how far we are from trustworthy robot helpers—and why researchers are still figuring out how to make AI work safely in the real world.