A hitchhiking robot that successfully navigated its way through Canada has been destroyed. In America. In Philadelphia.
According to HitchBot’s creators:
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.
Why Philly? Do we always have to be known as the assholes of the east coast? I can’t wait to see what the lovely residents of the “City of Brotherly Love” will do the thousands of visitors coming to see The Pope.
Update via the CBC:
Some of the robot’s followers went to the area to retrieve the remains after the incident, and its “brain” containing the software is still intact, Smith said. His team is now arranging for the parts to be shipped back to Canada to determine the next step of the experiment.
