hitchBOT was a hitchhiking robot created by two Canadian professors. Although it is physically unable to move itself, it can hold conversations and contains a GPS. It was designed to travel from one point to another through hitchhiking. The robot would ask drivers for a ride and journey across whatever country it was in. Overall, it’s traveled through Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands. However, it’s time ended in the United States, where it was decapitated here in Philadelphia.
The robot itself raised a lot of interesting questions about trust between robots and humans. Are robots able to trust humans? Furthermore, it provided a new perspective on how we interact with technology, especially since this robot relies on more human qualities than on computation.
For more information on hitchBOT, click here.
Foundations of Art, Design, + Digital Culture 