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The Tragic Journey Of Hitchbot
- Hitchbot was a cheaply built hitchhiking robot that toured Canada and Europe before being vandalised in Boston in 2015.
- Its parts included pool-noodle arms, a cake-saver helmet and a car seat, and fans tracked it by Twitter and GPS.
People Treat Cute Robots As If They Feel
- Humans anthropomorphize robots and often hesitate to harm cute machines even when rationally they know they are not sentient.
- Experiments show people delay or refuse to switch off pleading robots, revealing emotional bias in human-robot interaction.
Mall Robot Bullied Into Running Away
- Robovi 2, a Japanese mall robot, was bullied by children who circled and assaulted it until researchers added an abuse-avoidance algorithm.
- The algorithm made the robot detect children under 4'6" and quickly retreat to avoid harassment.