If you're driving along Canada's highways, you may encounter a hitchhiking robot with his right thumb out, Wellington boots on and a charming personality — not to mention the ability to tweet, Instagram and update his Facebook profile. Meet hitchBOT.
The little robot, the brainchild of Canadian researchers, is making his way across Canada, relying on strangers to give him a ride. The journey is part of an experiment in both the culture of human kindness and the current state of artificial intelligence technology.
The collaborative art and robotics project aims to explore two diverse issues: the growing utility for social or companion robots, and a growing aversion toward risk and adventure (in Canada at least), said David Harris Smith, a professor of communications at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and one of hitchBOT's founding fathers. [See photos of the hitchhiking robot on his journey]