Some media have asserted that the mall robot committed suicide. I've done work with AI and most of what is stated in media or in entertainment is complete fiction (like Terminator could never happen - not possible for AI).
Is there evidence the robot wanted to terminate itself, or was this a misunderstanding or mishap with the robot?
"Commiting suicide" colloquially means ending your life. As a robot doesn't have life, let's assume it means "ending your functional existence".
Suicide requires self-consciousness (being aware of your own existence), and a will (the will to end this existence for {reasons}).
Self-awareness and will falls into the realm of hard AI, and has not yet been achieved, and possibly never will. If Knightscope, the producers of the robot in question, had achieved hard AI, they would be sure to herald it on their website, and we'd have heard about it as it would have been a major breakthrough in computer science.
Absent true self-awareness, the robot just followed its program of pattern recognition and path finding. As there could have been no conscious "decision" to "commit suicide", he followed some subroutine.
I am casually ruling out that Knightscope programmed a subroutine of "destroy yourself" into their main product for the fun of it. As Knightscope makes no claim that their robots can walk on, roll over, or hover above water, they probably didn't program their robot's navigational system to "move into that fountain" either. Both would be a rather poor business decision.
So the purpose of the subroutine that made the robot move into that fountain was something different than "destroy yourself", or "move into that fountain", it just happened to have that side effect.
It was a computer / software malfunction, pure and simple.
I doubt the media really makes the claim that the robot "committed suicide" in the abovementioned meaning of the word; they just phrased it that way as it will attract more readers than "robot had malfunction that led to destruction of said robot".
Point in case, the linked article also states the robot "drowned himself". Drowning is usually connected with asphyxiation. I very much doubt the robot breathed / required oxygen to function. It is much more likely it short-circuited, but "drowning" sounds better.
