Robots can do all sorts of things, such as build cars, greet shoppers, or even defend itself against a sword attack, but now it looks like robots can even buy drugs online. This was part of an art installation by Swiss art group, !Mediengruppe Bitnik where they set up an automated online shopping bot to help them explore and discover the dark web.They also gave the robot $100 worth of Bitcoin every week in which it will then use to make random purchases from a dark web marketplace called Agora which sells all sorts of illegal items such as drugs, for example. Now the robot has been happily purchasing all sorts of illicit items from October 2014 until January 2015 when its drug-purchasing spree came to an end thanks to intervention from the Swiss police.
In January, authorities actually confiscated the robot and its stash which included “a Hungarian passport, Ecstasy pills fake Diesel jeans, a Sprite can with a hole cut out in order to stash cash, Nike trainers, a baseball cap with a hidden camera, cigarettes and The Lord of the Rings e-book collection,” so as you can see apart from the drugs and the passport, the rest of the items were more or less legal.
Thankfully the art group was not charged. In a statement released to CNBC, the Swiss police had this to say: “We decided the Ecstasy that is in this presentation was safe and nobody could take it away. Bitnik never intended to sell it or consume it so we didn’t punish them.”
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