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"Tweenbots" Test NYC Pedestrian-Robot Relations
MBCook recommends Kacie Kinzer's tweenbots page, which documents some of her experiments with small, anthropomorphized robots that need help. Kinzer is writing a thesis (at the Center for the Recently Possible) centered around investigating whether people in New York City will help a cute little robot to get where it's going. "Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal."
Constantly text messaging other tweenbots.
There's a reason they're doing this in New York, and not Boston, there. Keep in mind that those things were in other major cites, and Boston is the only major city in the world to order evacuations over LED animated cartoon characters.
There's a reason that Boston isn't known for anything except baked beans and New York is a center for culture, art, music, and science.
If I had to guess, in Paris it would depend on the language the directions were written in:
English - it'd be damaged and tossed in the garbage
French - it'd arrive at its destination with a baguette, cigarette in its mouth, and have lipstick in interesting areas
German - it'd arrive along with a letter of French surrender
1. Make a sad-faced robot carrying a coin jar.
2. Give it a sign saying "Brother, can you spare a quarter so I can buy a new battery?"
3. ???
4. PROFIT!
Showing weakness to the machines is the first step towards your annihilation. First they help the "adorable robot", and next thing you know they're equipping it with firearms, you know, for "self defense".
Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.