A Helpless Canadian Hitchhiking Robot Lasted Two Weeks In The US Before Getting Decapitated

I must admit, I’d not heard of ‘HitchBot’ before today, but it sounds like an intriguing experiment. The work of a team of Canadian researchers, HitchBOT was intended to investigate how humans interact with robots, and last year was picked up by numerous strangers and taken on a 6000+ mile journey across Canada. It could be tracked via GPS, and followed on various social media accounts.

It also traveled quite successfully in the Netherlands and Germany, but the smiley robot’s latest adventure took it to the United Sates, where it lasted just two weeks. Why? Because in Philadelphia, poor HitchBot was vandalised. The damage was terminal, with the machine left ‘decapitated’ and with its arms removed. Seems like a damn shame, no? Perhaps humanity deserves a Terminator-style robot uprising…

The team behind the project released a statement on HitchBot’s website, saying: "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."