Update at 3:20 EST Watch a video below of the hitchBOT being destroyed.
Humans are awful. Nothing newsworthy there.
In the latest example of how evil we are, the hitchhiking robot trying to make it’s way across the country had its trip stopped short after being decapitated and having its arms ripped off in Philadelphia.
After just two weeks and 300 miles into its journey, the hitchBOT humanoid robot was found headless and beaten to a pulp.
“Oh dear, my body was damaged, but I live on back home and with all my friends,” hitchBOT wrote on its website. “I guess sometimes bad things happen to good robots! My trip must come to an end for now, but my love for humans will never fade. Thank you to all my friends.”
Here’s a message from the researchers who built hitchBOT: “hitchBOT’s trip came to an end last night in Philadelphia after having spent a little over two weeks hitchhiking and visiting sites in Boston, Salem, Gloucester, Marblehead, and New York City. Unfortunately, hitchBOT was vandalized overnight in Philadelphia; sometimes bad things happen to good robots. We know that many of hitchBOT’s fans will be disappointed, but we want them to be assured that this great experiment is not over. For now we will focus on the question ‘what can be learned from this?’ and explore future adventures for robots and humans.”
The purpose of the cross-country trip was to see how humans would interact with robots. Well, this trip didn’t go so well, unlike other recent trips for hitchBOT. In 2014, hitchBOT traveled across Canada from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Victoria, British Columbia. In just 26 days it hitched a total of 19 rides and traveled over 6213 miles [10,000 kilometers].
Since then, it visited Germany to explore cities like Munich, Cologne, Berlin, and Hamburg. It also took a vacation to the Netherlands to see some of Twente’s most notable arts and culture locations.
According to Gizmodo, “the people thought to have last seen hitchBOT in one piece on Friday were video bloggers from BFvsGF. You can fast forward to 7:30 in the video to see where they pick up hitchBOT in Philly.”
Standing three feet tall and sporting newly shined wellies before it kicked off its U.S. journey, hitchBOT is equipped with speech technology, a GPS system, and a bucket list. On its trip across the U.S., it hoped to see Times Square in New York, Millennium Park in Chicago, Mount Rushmore, and the Grand Canyon, depending solely on the goodwill of strangers to cross the items off the list and make it to its final destination, the Exploratorium in San Francisco.
Update at 3:20 EST Vlogger Jesse Wellens posted the footage below to Snapchat of the hitchBOT being destroyed.
@adamgabbatt @Jessewelle @hitchBOT @GuardianUS here it is from his snapchat pic.twitter.com/RdGxRAZsCC
— nick (@FaZeRainCan720) August 3, 2015
