Hitchbot

ABC News has an interesting article here about a clever little robot.  It’s not exactly going to pass the Turing Test because it doesn’t even look slightly human, nobody is ever going to be fooled, but that’s not the intent.  Hitchbot is a robot that’s going to hitchhike from Nova Scotia to Vancouver, having conversations with people who pick him (or ‘it’ I guess, more properly, but once we start interacting with these things, there is no doubt in my mind we will use gender based pronouns) up.  I wonder if they will have to literally pick him up, or if he has enough mobility and flexibility to get into the vehicles by himself, and sit down.  These are burning questions, which were not addressed in the article.

As he goes, he will live tweet the experience.  So, internet geeks will probably follow his route and hit the street when they find out he’s going to be passing through their area and he’ll probably have more luck than a regular hitchhiker.  I hope so.  “Two hours in this same stupid spot.  What is wrong with people” would make a very boring tweet.

One thing that I think is very cool about this project is that it’s being done by a couple of guys at the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design.  Robotics have advanced to the point that you don’t even need to be a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist to build one.  Artists are doing it.

It makes sense.  Once they’ve figured out how to get a robot to walk upstairs on human like legs, everybody can just copy that design.  You’ve got the computer to act as a brain, you just figure out what kind of a container you’re going to put it in. It’s very mix and match, like Mr. Potato Head.  I often wonder why housing doesn’t work on the same principle.

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I’m having a very stupid argument with some people on facebook.  9/11.  I’ve raised my theory (Dick Cheney, Marvin Bush, and Larry Silverstein for the insurance money).  One guy mentioned shoe bomber Richard Reid and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and asked if the government did those as well and when I pointed out that that was a straw man argument he went on an incoherent rant and then another girl, just a propos of nothing, said does anybody remember the Oklahoma City Bombing and straw man guy said yup, yup, I do, as if a point had been made.  The argument that really ticked me off, though, was the guy who said “Well, obviously you’re going to go ahead and believe what you believe regardless of what anybody else says.”

Well, of course I’m going to believe what I believe, dumbass, what am I supposed to do, believe what somebody else believes?  Show me some evidence, show me something that changes my mind, at least make a logical argument.  Moron.