A grocery store manager in Pieksämäki has filed two criminal complaints with local police regarding the vandalisation of the shop's autonomous delivery robots.
The manager of the Sale market in the Kontiopuisto neighbourhood, Jari Räsänen, said the diminutive, wheeled units had only been in service for a couple of months before being targeted.
Store workers have seen the autonomous devices being kicked, spit at and thrown to the ground, he explained.
It is likely the attacks and vandalism were captured on video, as the robots are each equipped with 16 cameras, and they also carry microphones.
However, store staff haven't seen such footage, because recordings are sent directly to the robots' manufacturer Starship, the Estonian firm that owns the devices.
According to the manager, alarms are triggered if the units are picked up or kicked.
"But you don't have to worry about triggering the alarm if you help a robot that's stuck," he explained.
The grocery store chain Sale is part of S-Group, which first piloted the robots in Helsinki in 2022 and then began expanding the service in other parts of Finland.
People generally like the robots and have been known to help them out, according to Aatos Paloheino, the manager of S-Group's delivery robot services.
They are rarely subjected to vandalism, so the incidents in Peiksämäki are exceptional, he said.
Doctoral researcher Mika Koverola — who studies the relationship between humans and robots at Helsinki University — suspects that the vandalism in Peiksämäki is not due to hatred but rather run-of-the-mill vandalism.
He said that people's brains are innately tuned to recognise moving objects as non-human — one reason why children are often drawn to animals.
"The brain's first reaction to a robot is: Look! An animal!'" he explained.
"A robot triggers the same mechanisms in the brain as an animal would, even though adults understand that a robot is not alive," Koverola said.