Collapsed among trash and dead leaves, its arms ripped off and its head nowhere in sight, the talking and tweeting hitchhiking robot from Canada met its untimely end in Philadelphia over the weekend, but there might be another chance at life for the child-sized traveling robot.
HitchBOT’s co-creators Frauke Zeller and David Smith said on Monday that they have been overwhelmed with support and offers to revive the robot since it was vandalized beyond repair and left on a street in Philadelphia on Saturday, and that they are considering rebuilding it.
The robot was on a hitchhiking social experiment adventure in the US after trekking across Canada and parts of Europe without incident last year. Strangers helped the immobile hitchBOT travel from place to place while checking items off its bucket list.
Photo: AP
The solar panel-powered robot was designed to traverse continents on the kindness of strangers and could toss out factoids and carry on limited conversation. It was equipped with a GPS tracker and a camera to chronicle its journey, and was programmed to snap a photograph of what was going on around it every 20 minutes.
The child-sized droid started its US journey on a road in Massachusetts on July 17, its rubber-gloved thumb raised skyward, a strip of tape across its body reading “San Francisco or bust.”
During its short-lived US trip, the hitchBOT attended a Red Sox game — even donning a jersey over its cylindrical torso — and took a ride on the New York City subway.
Smith said the hitchBOT even had some good times in Philadelphia, attending an extended family picnic at a park and being taken in by a well-known YouTube user, who set the robot up for its next ride.
However, it was then that the innocent hitchBOT met its demise.
The creators were sent a photograph of the vandalized robot collapsed among trash and dead leaves on a pavement in Philadelphia, its pool noodle arms ripped from its torso, its plastic cake saver head and robot brain nowhere in sight. They decided not to share that image because it could be upsetting to some viewers.
To some crime experts, the tale of hitchBOT is a parable about US violence.
Jeff Ferrell, a professor of sociology at Texas Christian University, was not surprised by the robot’s demise.
“Culturally, there’s sort of a meanness in the American soul that isn’t present in Canada and other places, so in some ways I found it too typical,” Ferrell said.
Researchers struggle to define what explains the differences between nations.
Factors blamed for violence are present in both the US and Canada, but the US has a higher rate of violent crime, experts said.
“There’s certainly a different kind of culture in parts of the United States and violence is kind of an expression of that culture, which you don’t find in Canada,” said Richard Bennett, professor of justice at American University in Washington.
Philadelphia police said they have no information about hitchBOT’s demise because no one filed a criminal complaint.
If someone does file a report, it would be investigated as vandalism, Lieutenant. John Stanford said.
Zeller said many people have reached out with offers to rebuild the droid and her team would make a decision on whether to bring the robot back to life in the coming days.
“We don’t really know what to do, so we have to sit down with the whole team, and really see where we are and what can be done,” Zeller said.
Since word got out, thousands of supporters have taken to social media to express their sadness and outrage.
“I am incensed. I hope the perpetrators are found and punished. Long live the good memories. Hope to see you reincarnated soon,” one Twitter user wrote.
“If I could drive, I would have personally helped you across the USA and kept you safe,” another wrote.
The creators do not know who destroyed the hitchBOT or why and are not interested in investigating the incident or pressing charges. For now, they are focusing on the question: “What can be learned from this?”
“We’ve always asked, in the context of this project: ‘Can robots trust humans?’” Smith said. “And, you know, we would say at this point, mostly.”
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