"Hitchhiking robot embarking on coast-to-coast tour across US"
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It's an art project in the wild — it invites people to participate."
The humanoid robot named hitchBOT has already caught rides across Canada and in Europe, relying on the kindness and curiosity of strangers. But on Friday it starts its first U.S. tour, setting out from Salem, Massachusetts, with dreams of San Francisco ahead...
The kid-size robot is immobile on its own, so it gets from place to place by being schlepped around by strangers... Ideally, the creators hope, drivers won't leave the bot along busy roads and will charge the battery when it runs low. Otherwise, there are no rules.
"We want to see what people do with this kind of technology when we leave it up to them," said Frauke Zeller, one of the creators... (read more)
3 comments:
A robot can no more "rely" on the kindness of strangers or be "cheeky and charming" than Bruce Jenner can be a female.
However, to the increasing percentage of the population that is fantasist, reality be damned.
I guess the idea is to find out if people can suspend a belief and treat a robot as a sentient being.
If I pick him up he's going to have to come up with some gas money.
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