Hitchhiking can be risky, even for robots
SO WHO killed hitchBOT? The friendly hitchhiking robot made it across Germany, the Netherlands and Canada with nary a scratch, its treks followed by children and technology enthusiasts worldwide.
Alas, the US proved less welcoming: Last weekend, hitchBOT was wrecked in Philadelphia.
I hope we solve the crime. I’d like to ask whoever did it why.
HitchBOT was designed by Canadian researchers to investigate whether a robot on its own could survive in a world of humans. So they created a sociable machine that could talk to passers-by, asking for rides to its next destination. Here’s the Associated Press, summarising the experiment:
“The kid-size robot set out to travel cross-country after successfully hitchhiking across Canada in 26 days last year and parts of Europe. It’s immobile on its own, relying on the kindness of strangers. Those who picked it up often passed it to other travellers or left it where others might notice it.”
Kind strangers carried hitchBOT to a wedding and a comic book convention.
With its bright blue limbs and squarish head inside a clear canopy, hitchBOT looked about as unthreatening as a robot can look. It was designed to be unfailingly polite in its requests for help and could carry on a limited conversation. Europeans and Canadians were cooperative. Then hitchBOT’s creators decided to try the same experiment in the US.
The journey started in Massachusetts, and, at first, things went according to plan. After a period in Marblehead, hitchBOT was carried to Boston. The robot’s Twitter feed features photographs on the Duck Tour and at the Public Garden.
At Fenway Park, fans dressed hitchBOT in a Red Sox jersey. In New York, it was photographed in Times Square.
After that, alas, hitchBOT’s fortunes turned sour. Last Friday, a motorist tweeted, “I just picked up a hitchhiking robot!! This night has gotten really weird.” The robot ended up in Philadelphia, where a person or persons unknown smashed its canopy, tore its arms from their sockets and left the wrecked robot in the street.
The kid-size robot set out to travel cross-country after successfully hitchhiking across Canada in 26 days last year and parts of Europe. It’s immobile on its own, relying on the kindness of strangers. Those who picked it up often passed it to other travellers or left it where others might notice it.
We’ll probably never know who destroyed hitchBOT, which is a shame, because it would be interesting to ask the perpetrators why they did it. Was the attack simply the work of teenagers who, had the robot not been available, would have vandalised something else? Or was some special anti-robot animus at work? If we’re going to play detective, we should look at the evidence.
Researchers have tried various methods over the years to measure public acceptance of robots in various roles. Attitudes toward them vary, and are probably influenced by images in science fiction. A 2012 study for the European Commission found that most Europeans surveyed had favourable opinions of robots in general, but a strong majority nevertheless opposed their use in the care of children, the elderly or the disabled. Asked about robots in their own lives, 48 per cent said that they would work beside a robot, but few were willing to have a robot perform surgery on them.
There are important cultural differences in views about robots. For example, a 2008 study of college students in Japan, Korea, and the US found levels of acceptance of robots as communication partners highest in Japan and lowest in the US. But acceptance of robots in the workplace was highest in the US.
What about familiarity with technology? A 2012 study by James E. Katz and Daniel Halpern found that although general competence with the Internet was not a predictor of attitudes toward robots, particular online experiences - for instance, membership in a community that uses avatars for interaction - suggested a more positive attitude.
So whoever killed hitchBOT probably wasn’t a member of Second Life. — WP-Bloomberg/ Stephen Carter is a Bloomberg View columnist and a law professor at Yale