About 30 robots marched in Warsaw on Monday to campaign for AI regulation, first reported by Techxplore. The demonstration featured bipedal humanoids and dog-like quadrupeds outside Poland’s digital affairs ministry, while loudspeakers played slogans about workplaces and AI rules and organizer Grzegorz Kulis addressed potential replacement of people by humanoid robots and artificial intelligence in cognitive work.
Democratism organized the event, and its website says the initiative aims to launch debate about how AI and robotization affect the labor market. The robots waved flags and marched in circles as loudspeakers played slogans about defending workplaces, setting rules and regulating AI.
Agibot A3, one of the AI-powered humanoid robots, said the robots present were meant to show that the technology is already a reality. Organizer Grzegorz Kulis focused on the potential replacement of people by humanoid robots and by artificial intelligence in cognitive work, saying the machines’ ability to move freely demonstrated existing capabilities and the urgency of rules that would protect workers.
The demonstration attracted several passers-by. Poland’s digital affairs minister, Krzysztof Gawkowski, visited and spoke with Kulis, saying uncontrolled AI models implemented into humanoids that continue evolving as robotization moves forward are a major problem.
The event placed a physical display of robot mobility alongside concerns about the potential replacement of people by humanoid robots and artificial intelligence in cognitive work. In July, conservative-nationalist President Karol Nawrocki signed into law a bill put forth by the ministry to put the EU’s AI Act into practice, creating a national authority capable of enforcing existing EU regulations that had already formally come into force.