If a key principle of robot ethics is not kicking the robot, what if the robot is designed to kick itself? This mesmerising chair continually collapses and reassembles itself. It’s a sculptural collaboration by Max Dean, Raffaello D’Andrea and Matt Donovan.

Does this escape censure because the parts of the chair are not particularly damaged in their disassembly? It would then just be a robot just doing its job, and the entropic interpretation would all be in the eyes of its human beholders. I am inclined to think so, though it is interesting how close it skirts the line. Alternatively, by allowing us to contemplate, as Greg Smith has it, the existential plight of furniture, does it sin against the robot by condemning it to hell?

Via.