Anyone who kicks a robot should not assume it will stay down. At least, that was the experience of a man in Munich's Westend. In a video that is circulating on Instagram, he is seen delivering a powerful kick to a small machine. The robot falls over, but instead of resigning to its fate, it props itself back up. And then it gets interesting: the mechanical little one promptly takes off in pursuit of its attacker. How the unusual chase ended is not documented.
The victim is "Robot Westend," a robot approximately 1.20 meters tall that has been strolling through Munich's Westend since August. Dressed in lederhosen, a traditional shirt, and a hunter's hat, it has become a bit of a celebrity there. Children want to play with it, and adults take selfies.
What sounds like the beginning of a science fiction movie, however, has a mundane explanation: Robot Westend is remotely controlled by its owner. There is no independently acting AI behind it. In fact, the owner wants to use the walks to reduce people's fear of robots.
Violence against such machines is not a new phenomenon. Particularly in the USA, delivery robots repeatedly come under fire. Scientists have long been studying the so-called "robot abuse," or the mistreatment of robots.
One possible explanation: people want to find out how robots react. Japanese researchers observed children who insulted a robot in a shopping mall, blocked its path, kicked or hit it.
Subsequent surveys revealed that many were curious about the machine's reactions or enjoyed annoying it. Some even believed that the robot could perceive the attacks.
Often, these attacks have little to do with mere property damage; the scenes resemble targeted bullying. Bystanders get too close to the robots, push them, or deliberately cut them off.
The reason for these nasty games likely lies in a deep psychological contradiction: while our minds know that only plastic and circuit boards are rolling down the sidewalk, the movements of the machines often make us perceive them as real living beings. A living being, mind you, that can hardly defend itself. How we morally evaluate such assaults has been investigated in a study from 2025. The result: whether we feel sympathy for the machine depends largely on how it looks and how maliciously the attacker behaves.
Additionally, there may be a societal shift in sentiment. According to the Pew Research Center, already in 2026, 52 percent of Americans expressed more concern than enthusiasm for artificial intelligence. Five years prior, only 37 percent felt this way.
Skepticism is also slightly growing in Germany. According to the Digital Association Bitkom, in the spring of 2026, 69 percent of respondents viewed AI more as an opportunity, five percentage points less than the previous year.
Perhaps the rolling machines have to serve simply as a kind of lightning rod. They are the metallic scapegoats for a development that worries many people: fear for one’s job, feelings of loss of control, or the overwhelming dominance of tech giants. Whether there is really a highly complex artificial intelligence working under the hood of the machine or just a simple remote control is ultimately irrelevant.
Those who are angry about the digital future take it out on whatever is rolling along the sidewalk. However, there is still no solid scientific proof that increasing skepticism towards AI directly leads to more robot violence.
In the end, these unpleasant encounters on the sidewalk might reveal less about the technology than about ourselves. Whether we approach machines with curiosity, empathy, or indeed with raw violence reflects our own insecurity. The technology of tomorrow is slowly arriving in our present. How we welcome it there is entirely up to us.
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An article written by Christian Schiffer (BR), initially published on 14 October 2026, 05:13 (CEST)