Hitchbot experience

[razz]

Anyone been following this story about the robot that was traveling across the US as it had across Canada last year. It was vandalized unfortunately. A telling and disappointing story on an experiment about how society responds but many in the US are offering to help restore it.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/hitchbot-creators-offered-help-to-rebuild-hitchhiking-robot-1.3177738

You may notice a number of comments about using a weapon on the childlike robot but that is the Canadian perspective on gun control in the US.

[Float On]

I hadn't heard about it until I watched the news last night...on a TV...haven't done that in ages. Thought it was so sad that it had been successful in other countries only to get torn up after being in the US a short time.

[Radicchio]

How ironic that it was dismembered in the City of Brotherly Love---sad, really,

[awakenedsoul]

This doesn't surprise me. I can see this experiment doing well in a city like Vienna, where most people really follow the rules. (Well, at least they used to...I haven't been there in 23 years.) Unfortunately, there are many people in America with a tendency to destruct. It's too bad. I'm glad they received so many offers to help. I hope they find a way to do it. It's very telling, though. Not everyone has the maturity or respect for this type of experiment.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I don't think destroying a robot would occur to me, but I can understand being annoyed with it. Really depends on my mood, if it was good I might find it interesting, if it was burned out I'd be like: on top of everything else this @#$# robot has it's thumb out! (wouldn't that be kind of a traffic hazard anyway? distracting drivers eyes from the road ....). It's not enough the homeless on the freeway on-ramp beg at me, the billboards "scream" at me (metaphorically), people in person scream at me (literally - selling stuff), now robots want me to pick them up as well ... No I'm sorry I'm not your robot chauffeur. Not today!

I think people might very well be annoyed if someone's vanity project (which it is) was causing them any real inconvenience (but you don't have to pick it up, well provided the drivers aren't swerving in front of you due to watching robot hitchhikers on the side of the road)

[ToomuchStuff]

I read about it today and laughed quite a bit. One of the commentators picked up on one section of the story, that no one else did. The robot was marked San Francisco or Bust, and the comment was Second goal, Mission Accomplished.

[razz]

I read about it today and laughed quite a bit. One of the commentators picked up on one section of the story, that no one else did. The robot was marked San Francisco or Bust, and the comment was Second goal, Mission Accomplished.

That is funny to read.

[iris lilies]

Nor did a news story about this last week so that's where I heard about it. It's a funny and interesting idea.