Can we trust robots? Better question: can robots trust us?
Ask HitchBOT, a charismatic robot who just hitchhiked its way across Canada from Halifax, N.S. to Victoria, B.C. — a three-week journey of more than 6,000 km (3728 miles) — accepting 18 rides from total strangers and tweeting its progress to its 35,100 followers.
@HitchBOT used GPS and a 3G cellphone wireless connection feeding to a map with its position. It has a face made from LED lights to show expressions, a body wrapped in solar panels, a mind created with Cleverbot-based chatbot software (with voice-recognition and speech ability), and social-media and Wikipedia APIs.
