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posted by cmn32480 on Monday July 20 2015, @06:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-kind-of-favors-does-a-robot-give-for-a-ride dept.

http://m.hitchbot.me/usa/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/07/17/can-robots-trust-humans-a-hitchhiking-bot-will-find-out/

As you read this, a three-foot tall robot is likely strapped into the passenger seat of a stranger's car, whizzing down some road outside Salem, Mass. Its pool-noodle legs, clad in yellow rain boots, are splayed out in front of it. Its solar panel-wrapped cylindrical body gleams in the sunlight. Its boxy face — which lacks a nose but features huge red LED eyes and an upside-down rainbow of a smile — swivels back and forth as it alternately makes conversation and peers out the window at the landscape passing by.

That's if it's lucky. If it's unlucky this intrepid droid, dubbed "HitchBOT" by the Canadian engineers who created it, is still perched on the side of the road somewhere, arm extended, thumbing for a ride. Or, if it's really unlucky, it's already dead — destroyed by weather or the malice of humans.

Determining which scenario turns out to be the right one is part of the mission for HitchBOT, who was launched on a hitchhiking journey across the U.S. Friday. The robot comes equipped with a GPS tracker, a camera, an opposable thumb and a bucket list of American destinations it aims to reach in the weeks ahead, relying solely on rides from sympathetic strangers.

It made it across Canada last summer, will motorists help it in the USA?


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  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:06AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday July 21 2015, @08:06AM (#211822) Homepage
    Yes, and my prediction for "Will it make its way across Canada?" would have been "Yes, just fine". There is no inconsistency here.
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