Hitchhiking Robot's Cross-Country Trip Ends In Philadelphia

An anonymous reader writes: A hitchhiking robot that successfully traveled across Canada in 26 days last year and parts of Europe, has met its demise in Philly. Created as a "social experiment," hitchBOT started its journey in the U.S. in Marblehead, Massachusetts, on July 17 with its thumb raised up and tape wrapped around its head that read "San Francisco or bust." After about two weeks in the U.S., someone in Philadelphia damaged the robot beyond repair. "Sadly, sadly it's come to an end," said Frauke Zeller, one of its co-creators. The Independent reports: "The robot was designed to be a talking travel companion and could toss out factoids and carry limited conversation. A GPS in the robot tracked its location, and a camera randomly snapped photos about every 20 minutes to document its travels."

Comments

It was bound to happen.

[Bruha]

Unfortunately the less fortunate in other countries have more respect for something than our country. Thanks asshole.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, an article about something like this with no pictures? Come on.

CBC News article with pictures.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait until Bruha finds out that the Average US Citizen is the LESS FORTUNATE when compared to the standard of living in most every other 1st World Nation.
In fact, comparatively, the US is more like a 2nd World Nation in terms of income equality and standard of living.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[NotQuiteReal]

all wealth is derived from the land

So nobody ever has created wealth without land?

There are no wealthy actors, musicians, authors, or anyone in the tech industry? Huh, guess I'll go buy me farm.

Re:It was bound to happen.

[drinkypoo]

all wealth is derived from the land

So nobody ever has created wealth without land?

There are no wealthy actors, musicians, authors, or anyone in the tech industry? Huh, guess I'll go buy me farm.

Are you really this dumb, or do you just want an argument? I've had this argument before, and it was dumb that time, too. The short, short form is "where do you think the electricity to run the internets comes from? Magic fairies?"

Re:It was bound to happen.

[Alioth]

> There are no wealthy actors, musicians, authors, or anyone in the tech industry? Huh, guess I'll go buy me farm.

There are, but they all required land to do it. Musicians need food and shelter to make music, this requires land. Every cent of wealth generated in all of history can be traced back to the land (or sea) and until we can practically leave the planet, this constraint will remain.

interesting experiment

[Virtucon]

Too bad it was damaged beyond repair, I'm curious around the real circumstances as to how it became that way? Anybody have a better link than the TFA?

Re:interesting experiment

[Virtucon]

Art exists for art sake. I think it's an interesting experiment in human nature. It's obviously proven one point that people will be assholes just to be assholes.

Re:interesting experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you can explain the contrast between it being vandalized in Philly, yet made it across Canada and Europe undamaged?

I dont think the "public" in general was upset. Most of the news articles are fairly positive as are the associated comments.

Also, they didnt get rid of it. They just broke it. If it was "junk" and someone put it in the garbage that would be one thing. Instead, they damaged it and stole part of it.

Re:interesting experiment

[drinkypoo]

Instead, they damaged it and stole part of it.

You can't steal what is given away, and the law says that if you leave stuff lying around on purpose, that you're in a grey area. Specifically, by leaving it on the side of the road without any sort of permit, you're littering. Not only are you giving up your rights to whatever you left there, but you can be fined for discarding of waste improperly.

Now, I agree that it's douchey to damage the thing and take part of it, but I don't agree that it's vandalism or theft. Some social experiments fail. Or, alternately, it's a success in another way; it's taught us something about the world.

Re:interesting experiment

[dk20]

Among the metrics of success is usability for the masses.
it is by no stretch the only metric, but it is one of them.

You don't get 'funding' for projects people don't care about, do you?
Marketing plays into almost everything in some ways.

Re:interesting experiment

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad it was damaged beyond repair, I'm curious around the real circumstances as to how it became that way?

Some joker tried to install systemd on it.

Re:interesting experiment

[drinkypoo]

It's ugly, it's a distraction and has the potential to become a road hazard.

You could say the same about most any user of this website, are you about to make a modest proposal regarding slashdotters? Because that will be a fun thread.

Re:interesting experiment

[n3r0.m4dski11z]

"You can't steal what is given away, and the law says that if you leave stuff lying around on purpose, that you're in a grey area. Specifically, by leaving it on the side of the road without any sort of permit, you're littering"

And this my friends, is why it survived in canada and europe for months but NOT the usa for more than a few weeks.

You talk so much mr poo, that you give away the real truth with your comment without even realizing it. That is why it was damaged in america in short order, because americans think exactly like this comment.

As usual

[ArcadeMan]

The article mentions a blog, but there's no link to it. The article mentions that the "robot" took a photo every 20 minutes but there's not a single photo to show us.

It's like the Internet is only able to use text for articles and things like photos, animations and videos are the exclusive domain of advertisers.

Re:As usual

[invictusvoyd]

https://twitter.com/hitchbot

Re: As usual

[Anonymous Coward]

There sure has been lots of discrimination based on race. However, there's a difference between discrimination and the institutionalized racism through slavery and Jim Crow laws that have combined for centuries of oppression. Let's say that Kim Jong-Un was dethroned today in North Korea and a democracy was implemented immediately. Do you honestly believe that North Korea would immediately prosper? It would take a long time to recover from the damage done by the dictatorship. While other races and ethnicities have prospered more quickly in the US, they also haven't faced the prolonged severe racism that African-Americans have. You're a troll because you're intentionally leaving out those important facts.

Re:Even Humans Cannot Hitchhike Safely.

[myowntrueself]

There are laws against hitchhiking in many states because it is considered dangerous. Many people are killed each year from it. While l personally think this is a great social experiment, the outcome should not be unexpected. While most of us would love to pick up a hitchhiking robot, robots have yet to their respect and place among humans.

"Hitchhiking is dangerous so we make it illegal, that way if you hitchhike in our state the police will taze you, rob you and put you in a cell with Bubba. Have a nice day."

Mission Accomplished

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> tape wrapped around its head that read "San Francisco or bust."

Option 2. Mission accomplished, right?

Re:Even Humans Cannot Hitchhike Safely.

[codepigeon]

the outcome should not be unexpected

And there is the problem. Have we sunk so low that it should be expected that our society will not be civil? The robot made it safely across canada and parts of europe. It spent a week with a heavy metal band, people respected it.
Two weeks in america and its defiled. Makes me emberrased.

Re:Niggers

[kheldan]

The creators were sent an image of the vandalized robot Saturday but couldn't track its location because the battery is dead. They said they don't know who destroyed it or why.

The perpetrators of this vandalism probably were bored, undereducated, underachieving young WHITE male(s). The definition of 'nigger' has changed; it has to do with how you think and act, not the color of your skin. Ironically, racist pieces of shit who go around calling black people 'niggers' are the ones who are the real niggers in the world, because they're largely who are perpetuating so-called race-related problems.

City of Brotherly Loathing

[perotbot]

There are some days I really hate living here. This is a morals tale like Short Circuit. Ih I had known the bot was here I would have driven it around for few days and maybe have turned it over to my ingress brethren to get it on it's way... farking arse holes....

Let off in Philly, it walked into a Dunkin' Donut.

[Applehu Akbar]

And was set upon by a gang of cheap Windows Vista laptops that had been lounging around glomming the free WiFi. It was found face down behind the diner, stripped of all data, with its USB port full of viruses.

Re:Niggers

[drinkypoo]

The perpetrators of this vandalism probably were bored, undereducated, underachieving young WHITE male(s)

You have any facts to back that up or is this just speculation?

Blacks are more commonly convicted when tried, and there are still more whites than blacks in philly, so it's probably still more likely. Also, consider that whites may have felt more likely to get away with such a crime.

Re:Niggers

[ArcadeMan]

The fact that this thing made all the way through canada (full of bored white people)

Hey, we're not bored, we're just freezing!

Obligatory

[ArcadeMan]

"We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better... stronger... faster."

Last seen alive on YouTube

[qzzpjs]

hitchBot was probably last seen alive on the BFvsGF channel on Youtube (vlog channel for PrankVsPrank). Near the end of the video they gave him a ride to the bench where he was probably picked up by the bad guys. Too bad they didn't trust the taxi driver to take him to New York.

Re:Niggers

[kheldan]

You tell someone they're this and that and they're bad long enough, and guess what happens? They start believing it, especially when that's all you heard your entire life since you were a little kid. We see now they've started turning it around into some sort of virtue. You see a similar phenomenon in the whole fat acceptance movement, and that's fucked-up too. Us white people made black people what they are today, we're the original perpetrators of that, and now they've been told they're this-and-that-and-bad for so long that they actually believe it themselves. So they act accordingly. Which just makes racist white people feel justified in their attitudes towards black people. Which continues the whole goddamned vicious circle. What did you think was going to happen?

Re: Even Humans Cannot Hitchhike Safely.

[ChrisMaple]

All big cities have good neighborhoods. The difficult and important thing is to find a big city without bad neighborhoods. Philly fails that test, as does any big city dominated by leftists (generally Democrats.)

Re:Niggers

[kheldan]

Also it probably doesn't help that all through recorded Human history (and likely even way before that) slavery of one type or another was considered an acceptable way of life; you wage war on someone and conquer them, you enslave their people. How about during the industrial revolution? Or before women's rights? One could plausibly argue that these were forms of slavery, and there was even less excuse for it because it's not like they were 'some other race' or 'some other people', it was the same people from the same country. Even today there is slavery of various forms going on in the world, from as awful as the so-called 'islamic state' enslaving the women and children of the areas they take control of, to sex trafficking (even using children), to some countries where child labor for pitiful wages is a standard business practice. And people wonder why it is that I sometimes say 'humans are not actually civilized'; how can you say they are when there's still these sorts of things going on in the world?

Re:Niggers

[dcollins]

Guy in the video looks pretty white to me. Maybe you mean the bullshit that white dudes who are sick in the head go on about while they do evil:

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/heres-video-of-the-jerk-who-killed-hitchbot-1721797093

Surveillance video

[Sibko]

Some surveillance video is out finally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...