A register built for the decade when robots are everywhere
Right now the open web produces a handful of new commercial robot incidents a week. That will not stay true. This exists so that when it changes, the record already goes back years.
What it is
A public register of documented incidents involving physical commercial robots: 231 cases, 591 archived sources, 47 companies named, with the oldest event on file from 1979.
The unit is the event, not the article. A collision, the regulator that responds, the recall, the claim and the settlement stay in one file with a timeline.
Why the case file, and not a list
A list of incidents can be rebuilt by anyone in a day: the same search feeds, the same results. What cannot be rebuilt cheaply is the sequence of what happened afterwards, followed as it unfolded, with the sources captured before the links died.
That is the whole design decision behind this project, and it is why 44 cases carrying an outcome matter more here than the raw count does.
What it is not
Not a safety rating. Fleet sizes are not public, so nobody can honestly publish incidents per thousand machines, and we do not publish a number dressed up as one. The escalation index measures consequences, with the formula in the open.
Not a campaign either. The register has no position on whether any company should exist or any product should ship. It records what happened and what followed.
Who runs it
An independent one person project, funded by the paid products on this site rather than by anyone named in it. No company in the register funds, sponsors or reviews it, and no payment changes what is published.
Contact: hello@themachinerecord.com