At a time when the warning against using artificial intelligence in the military application is still making a buzz in the news, a social experiment demonstrates that humans are actually more terrible than robots.
Two weeks ago, the hitchhiking robot called hitchBOT started his journey in Boston, planning to see the entire country. However, the robot had to stop its journey short and never made it out of the Northeast. The hitchBot was built by Canadian researchers with the intention to study the interaction between humans and robots. However, the experiment needed to stop since hitchBOT was vandalized in Philadelphia.
After having spent a little over two weeks on the road, hitchhiking and visiting sites in New York City, Salem, Boston, Marblehead and Gloucester, hitchBOT was vandalized overnight in Philadelphia. For sure, many of hitchBOT's fans will be disappointed by the news. However, the team of researchers who built the robot announced that their experiment is not over. Now, the scientists will explore future adventures for humans and robots and focus on "what can be learned from this?"
The goal of the scientists who built the hitchhiking robot and planned its trip was to see how humans would interact with hitchBOT. Unfortunately, the answer to this question was "not well." Before its trip in the U.S., the robot has been around the world without major incident, including trips across the entirety of Germany and Canada. However, it seems that America is a hard land for robots. Sadly, hitchBOT wasn't as lucky in the U.S. as it was in Europe or Canada. In the U.S., the robot never made it very far. HitchBOT was found in Philadelphia in a bad shape, his arms were ripped off and his head was missing.
For the moment, it is still unclear whether the Canadian researchers behind the hitchBOT project have plans to repair the machine and sent it back out on the road. They will be giving interviews about their research project, according to their website, so we can hopefully learn more. Meanwhile, it seems that America should get more use with our robot brothers and sisters and meditate about what it's done to poor hitchBOT. Japan's consumers are already well familiar with robots replacing humans in services such as concierge, fast food crew and hotel staff.
