Engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology* have created a robot capable of deception. They set up two bots in a game of hide and seek. Robot 1 would dash off, knocking over obstacles set in its path. Robot 2 would ordinarily then be able to follow the trail of knocked over stuff and find Robot 1. But Robot 1 was capable of creating false trails and then dash off to hide in unexpected places.

“We have developed algorithms that allow a robot to determine whether it should deceive a human or other intelligent machine and we have designed techniques that help the robot select the best deceptive strategy to reduce its chance of being discovered,” says Arkin, proudly.

“We strongly encourage discussion about the appropriateness of deceptive robots to determine what, if any, regulations or guidelines should constrain the development of these systems,” adds the prof.

* in league with our secret robot overlords.