Gaak, the predator robot, showed the most basic human instinct at a science adventure centre back in 2002. After four months of entertaining humans, he made a dash for freedom.

The cunning 60cm high metal machine took his opportunity after being left alone for 15 minutes. He crept along a barrier until he found a gap, squeezed through, navigated across a car park and was just about to exit via the M1 motorway when his escape was foiled by the shade of a tree. It fooled his solar batteries into steering him round and round.

His inventor Professor Sharkey said his escapade boiled down to an absent-minded professor forgetting to press the ‘Off’ button.

Robots are learning to interact with the environment. Gaak was part of the programme called ‘mating’, where microchips from successful predator robots are merged to make a new robot composite brain.

The emphasis on hunting may have prompted his bid to see the rest of the world.

Brain or no brain, I think I’ll double-check that all my appliances are turned off before I get into bed. We all know what happens in Terminator 2…

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