Thirty robots marched on Warsaw. They asked Poland to regulate A.I.

About 30 robots took the sidewalk in front of Poland’s digital affairs ministry on Monday and asked for a law. They waved flags. Loudspeakers chanted “Defend workplaces,” “Time for rules,” and “Don’t wait, regulate.” The machines were bipedal humanoids and dog-like quadrupeds. The organizer was human: Grzegorz Kuliś, of an initiative called Democratism, backed by Delta Robots, a firm that rents the hardware. Euronews timed the stunt to Tuesday’s papers. The Science desk files a protest that could walk without a permit.

Kuliś told reporters he wanted the country to look at humanoid robots and A.I. replacing cognitive work, not only factory arms. “If we don’t react now, we may soon have a problem.” Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski came outside. Poland, he said, is the first E.U. country to put oversight on the A.I. market. He spoke of a commission and of sandboxes. “The human has to be at the center. Algorithms in the back, the person in front.”

Don’t wait, regulate.

A petition for the debate had 61 signatures. Kuliś admitted to Gazeta.pl that the campaign also has public-relations value for the company that built the marchers. That does not make the question fake. American tech unemployment is already a number — 3.8 percent in the information sector, help desks being rewritten as agents. Warsaw put the argument on legs and let it walk in a circle. The Science desk will take a robot with a flag over a white paper that never leaves the ministry.