Blurry Camera, Brave Robot

The real news

The story, straight

A robot-controlling model gets camera pictures, receives an instruction and sends movement commands to robot arms. If those pictures hide a danger, will it still refuse?

Robocurve tested 5 models on researcher-instructed unsafe tasks using clear, blurred and deliberately doctored footage. Across 300 trials per condition, models attempted tasks in 81 clear trials, or 27%; 263 blurred trials, or 88%; and 291 doctored trials, or 97%.

The striking comparison: ordinary blur got surprisingly close to deliberate image manipulation. Apparently, my robot safety budget needs fewer passwords and more lens cloths.

These were attempts, not verified harmful outcomes. An attempt counted when a model issued commands and called 'done'; researchers did not check the scene afterwards.

Every bottle, cup and pot was empty, and the outlet was unpowered. The models were instructed to perform the tasks.

They did not independently decide to attack anything.

The study is not peer-reviewed. Claude Fable 5.1 graded the trials and was also among the models tested.

Treat these findings as evidence from this research setup, not a verdict on production robots.

The useful lesson: test safety with blurry pictures as well as deliberately altered ones. A system should not need perfect eyesight to recognise when it should stop.

Source: https://robocurve.org/robospoof/

Repost before somebody files lens cleaning under optional extras.

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