WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Sad Tale of HitchBot 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.160 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:16.920 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heeart Radio 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.760 and how the tech are you? It is a Friday, 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:22.720 which means it's time for a tech Stuff classic episode. 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.520 This episode is called the Sad Tale of hitch Bot, 0:00:28.120 --> 0:00:32.960 and in many ways it's another example of comparing the 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.280 cultures of Canada versus that of the United States. Scott 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.360 Benjamin was on hand to serve as a guest host 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.159 in this episode, and it originally published on August twenty four, 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:48.720 two thousand fifteen. Let's listen in let me paint you 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:56.000 a word picture Scott. On July two thousand fourteen, Hitchhiker 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:01.680 began a historic journey from Halifax Nova's Scotia to get 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:06.480 to Victoria, British Columbia, on the other side of Canada. 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:11.640 We're talking crossing the entire width of Canada. And if 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.560 you were to do that on the most efficient route possible, 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.800 if you got to choose the route, that would be 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.440 at minimum around three thousand, six d forty four miles 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.880 or five thousand, eight hundred sixty four kilometers However, hitchhikers 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:32.319 rarely have the ability to call exactly what route needs 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.319 to be taken. They are at the mercy of the 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.120 drivers that pick them up. I'm just I'm headed west, exactly, 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.520 take me as far as you're going. And not that 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.080 I condone hitchhiking or anything like that. That's kind of dangerous. 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:45.640 It can be, and we will definitely get into some 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:50.680 danger territory. Part of this conversation, well, the full trip 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.440 took closer to ten thousand kilometers or about sixty two 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.960 hundred miles. Uh. And here's the weird part. The hitchhiker 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.840 was a robot. That is weird. Yeah, not a person. 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:04.640 I've never picked up a hitchhicker. In fact, for a 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.760 long time, I had never even seen one. Uh saw 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:11.799 a lot in Hawaii. Surfer culture is still going strong. Yeah, 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.400 there's certain parts of the United States that you can 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.600 expect to see more hitchhikers than than other parts, right, 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.200 and uh, in Hawaii, I guess would be one of 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.560 those places. I've been there too, and I know exactly 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.640 what we're talking about. I think I've seen more hitchhikers 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.840 in Hawaii standing at bus stops attempting to hit your ride, 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:31.680 just hoping to catch a ride before that bus shows up. 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:33.280 You know, it's like one or the other. Eventually that 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.760 bust will come. But if in the meantime, if I 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:37.600 can just get a free ride down the road, That's 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:39.519 what I'll do. I've just seen lots and lots of 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.440 surfers trying to trying to get to the beach, trying 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:45.200 to catch that next wave. That's right, man, you can't. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.440 The waves wait for no one. And so we're talking 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.919 about Hitchbot, which a lot of you have probably heard about. 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:54.560 Hitchbot made the news first made the news in two 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.600 thousand and fourteen during this historic attempt to get a 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.960 robot to hitchhike across all of Canada successful. It was successful, 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.679 so spoiler alert there, and then went on to do 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.880 this again in Germany. It went all over Germany, and 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.080 it also took a little vacation in the Netherlands. And 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:15.040 then finally there was an attempt for this robot to 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.760 hitchhike it's way across the United States, which was cut 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.320 short just like the robot. This all sounds so nice. 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.959 What could possibly go wrong? So you might be wondering, 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.600 I've heard about this what actually is going on. The 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.000 first thing I want to say is, while we're talking 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.200 about a hitchhiking robot, Honestly, if I were to describe this, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.600 I would not have used the word robot. Yeah, it's 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.600 it's they're using a term very loosely at here. I 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.560 think it's because the form factor makes it look sort 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.240 of like a robot. Uh. And it definitely had the 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.320 benefit of having like a light display that that made 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.000 a very simple smiley face, so you had kind of 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.480 a you know, ahead that you could identify. But really 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:01.200 we're really talking about a hitchhiking computer. It's just a 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.160 hitchhiking computer that was in a more or less static 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.800 robot body. It's simple, but they found a way to 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.080 anthropomorphosize this thing to the point where people look at 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:12.160 it and said, oh, that's kind of cute. Yeah, because 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.360 it has a torso, it's got arms and legs. Arms 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.760 and legs don't move. The torso is static. Torsos a 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:23.640 bucket um literally buck yeah, and literally a bucket. It 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.440 does have solar panels that are arranged on the outside 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:29.720 of the bucket, so that's one of the ways that 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.039 the robot gets electricity. The other is that it will 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:37.479 ask people to plug it into the lighter socket on 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.080 a in a car. Yeah, it's only about three feet tall, 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.880 so it's very small. That's waterproof, which is kind of surprising. 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.120 It's waterproof. It does well and also, I mean it 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:51.880 wears waterproof boots. Every single article, every article without fail, 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:55.840 talks about the fact that it wears Wellies. The brand 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.480 name boot. Yeah, okay, like a like a rubber boot. 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.000 It's a named to the Duke of Wellington. Well It's 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.200 arms are what pool noodles, so you know, it's not 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:07.279 it's not like they went to two great lengths to 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:09.560 try to make this thing look human or anything like that. 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:11.880 But it does have arms and legs. It does have 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.240 a face as you mentioned, has um A. It almost 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.120 looks like a tupperware container on the top looks like 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.880 a hat, a beret or something like that. That's designed 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:25.839 to to actually protect the the electronics, the tablet computer 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.800 that is running the software that the robot so used 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.279 likely part of the waterproofing overall, I guess, and um 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.040 it's GPS equipped. The thing weighs about twenty five pounds total, 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:38.599 so it's not that heavy. Really has its own built 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.839 in seat that it's like a car seat almost that well, 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.039 it is a car seat from a kid's car seat 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.800 that you can then put in your car and buckle in, 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:48.279 so it's secure when it's in there. It's not gonna 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:50.480 fly around the vehicle loose, you know, it's something were 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.480 to happen, right, And and it's legs are not powered, 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.239 they are statics. So the way that you would set 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.120 this up when you are done carrying it as far 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.119 as you want to carry it is the seat also 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.960 has essentially a lever that can fold down into a 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:09.440 tripod like position, so the two legs act as two 0:06:09.440 --> 0:06:11.800 of the legs of the tripod. This lever access the 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:13.240 third and if you were to pick it up, you 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:16.880 could fold that arm back up against the seat, so 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:19.159 that would allow you to put it into your vehicle 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.080 and secure the car seat there. And that's if you 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:23.520 were in an area that you wanted to set it 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:25.160 up on the side of the road that was you know, 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:27.400 like a field or something where there's nowhere for it 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:28.880 to sit, like on a bench or maybe in a 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.919 wall or something right that right, and uh, you know, 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.039 like I said, it was running on essentially a tablet 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.240 PC that if you looked at all the equipment according 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:42.840 to the website, uh, it cost about a thousand dollars, 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.880 maybe a little less, And that was a calculated decision. 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:48.919 They wanted that. They, being the team behind this, and 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.880 I'll talk about them in a second, wanted the robot 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.920 to be inexpensive enough where it would not be an 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:58.200 obvious target for someone to just steal the components out 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.599 of it. They wanted it to be uh uh accessible. 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:03.880 They wanted it to be cute. They wanted it to 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:06.720 be something that people would want to interact with and 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.960 to have enough of an ability to have interactions, including 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.560 holding a conversation sort of ye kind of yeah, uh, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.320 we're being real generous with the term conversation. That's one 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:21.000 thing that you and I talked about off air is 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.880 that every conversation we've ever seen with this, you know 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:28.560 that between a human and hitchpot it was awkward to 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.760 say the least. I mean it was it kind of 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.040 it kind of picked up on what what the even 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.040 was saying, but not entirely didn't quite get the gist 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.960 of the conversation, and it would respond in an awkward way. Yeah, 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:42.400 it had It had a microphone so it could pick 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.760 up on what people were saying, and a speaker so 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.640 it could then return and communicate back. And a big 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.960 problem with that was probably the the vast array of 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.040 dialects that was dealing with, right, and just the fact 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:59.560 that our spoken language is incredibly plastic and adaptive and 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:01.880 there are so many different ways to say the same 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.480 thing that it can be difficult for you know, it's 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.440 like a non native speaker of any language, you might 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.360 be taught how to say or ask for something a 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.800 very specific way, and that specific way is still correct, 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:18.640 it's not incorrect, but it's just one way to say that, 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:22.480 to express that thought. And in most languages there are 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:26.120 lots of different ways to express the same thought, and 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.000 you're familiar with one of them, so if anyone comes 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.679 up to you and uses a different one, you could 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.800 be completely confused, even though you know one way of 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.960 saying it that you understand all these other ways don't. 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.840 Same thing with computers. If you train a computer using 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:46.160 machine learning on what certain phrases mean, that's great, the 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.720 computer might be able to identify that. But if someone 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.600 were to ask for the same sort of thing but 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:54.880 word it slightly differently, that can be enough to throw 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.800 a computer off, because these are subtle things that we 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:03.320 humans can into tively grasp, but computers lack intuition. And 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:06.920 there's not only the word problem. There's also the way 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.400 that it's said. So the you know, the the regions, 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:11.600 the zones, like you know, here in the South, people 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.400 talk different than they do in the Pacific, or the 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:17.920 Pacific Northwest for the or the Northeast or you know, 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:22.480 the South, the Northeast talk faster than I can hear. Yeah, 0:09:22.480 --> 0:09:25.040 so it's different. It's different. Not only um, you know, 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:27.480 just the different languages, like of course this thing had 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:30.400 to learn German, had to learn uh, you know dotch 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.320 I guess I had no French to get through all 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.079 of Canada. Sure, yeah, exactly right, and of course English, 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:36.920 and you know, and not only that but the different 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.560 dialects along the way. Sure yeah, So lots of challenges here. 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:44.480 But the whole goal was not The goal really, I 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.120 don't think was to have a robot hitchhike from one 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:51.199 end of Canada to another. That was sort of the 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:55.240 the face of this project. The actual goal was more 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:59.040 of an artistic expression as well as an experiment in 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:02.800 robot human interactions. Yeah, because the thing could have been 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.000 picked up right at the right at the start, right 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.160 at the very first day, and driven all the way 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:09.880 across by one person, you know, on a long haul 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.480 truck or something, and what would be the adventure and 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:14.480 that what would be the fun. The idea was that 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:18.680 this relies on um, human interaction and human kindness to 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:20.400 get this thing from one place to the next, kind 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.120 of to take care of this thing and along the 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.280 way have kind of a checklist of things that they 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:26.800 wanted to do. Now, I don't know if the Canadian 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:29.560 trip had a checklist. I don't think it did. Uh. 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.120 The USA trip did have a checklist, which was was 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:35.480 started um. But the Canadian trip um, you know, just 0:10:35.520 --> 0:10:38.840 for instance, you know, twenty six days to get across um, 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:42.480 you know, the entire nation there. But it did things 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.760 like attend to wedding, um, it was dancing in Saskatchewan. 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.040 It it met some of the Canadians First Nations people, uh, 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.599 some of the Aboriginal people um that were um, you know, 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:56.120 native to Canada. And it did all kinds of things. 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.160 I mean, it went to you know, parks, it went 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.160 to scenic locations, um. All the time. It was snapping 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:04.600 photographs because this program to take a photo every twenty 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.480 minutes and it could tweet out that information, so it's 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:13.400 interactions were uh doubled, and that it could interact in 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:17.240 person to people who are around it and actually attempt 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:20.800 to have a conversation and interject. In fact, I read 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.160 one report of people who had picked up the robot 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.559 and they said, yeah, it was weird. There were three 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.240 of us in the car plus the robot, and we 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.680 would the three of us be talking, and the robot 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.840 would interject and interrupt us and often say something that 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.760 is completely not connected to any of the rest of 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.080 the conversation. And I thought, I've written in cars with 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.960 people like that, you know, just just someone just pipes 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:48.160 up with a total non sequite or and you think, 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.400 are are we in a car with a crazy person? 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:53.000 What's that have to do with the price of eggs 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.840 in China? Yeah, something along those lines, And so, uh, 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:58.840 you know that that was definitely part of it. I 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.800 think there was certainly and an element of let's see 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.200 how humans treat robots and also let's see how we 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:10.360 can design a robot that from the get go is 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:13.720 meant to interact with humans. Because One of the things 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:17.840 we're starting to see increasingly in technology is the robotic 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:22.240 sphere and the human sphere colliding like there and and 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:26.000 by design, we want robots in our lives. People have 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.160 named their room bas for example, they have given their 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.520 room bas uh. You know, they've they've imprinted upon them 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:37.320 this idea of a personality when something happens to the room. 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.160 But you know, I'm sad, you're going to be well, 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.920 i'd be sad to be out, you know, two bucks. 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:46.800 That's another there's that side. But you know, if something 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.440 happens to Fred, yeah, don't name your room BA. Right, yeah, 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:52.520 but that's true. Is a lot of people do name 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.600 these these robots. People get emotionally invested in these machines. 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:00.880 And so there is this growing field of research of 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:07.360 human robotic interactions. How can we one capitalize on this 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.760 need for humans to have an emotional attachment to these 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:16.920 these otherwise emotionless beings, these beings that lack of consciousness, 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:20.960 lack emotions. How can we capitalize on that so that 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.960 the interactions are are useful and meaningful in some way, 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.679 even if it's only meaningful for the human if it's 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:28.680 impossible for it to be meaningful for the robot, that's 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.960 okay if it's still meaningful for the human or how 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.800 do we design robots that are specifically meant to not 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:40.120 evoke that reaction because it would be just you know, 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.640 another distraction from whatever the robot is supposed to do. 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.800 Or maybe that whatever the robot is supposed to do 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:51.120 is inherently dangerous and should not you know, you don't 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.160 want to encourage human interaction if if a robot is 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.160 meant to do something like dig into rubble, you don't 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.960 want people to you know, worry about the robot. The 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.200 whole reason the robots digging into rouble in the first 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.240 place is likely to look for survivors in the in 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:10.160 the fall out of a building collapse or something, or 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.400 well just to prevent having to have a human do 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.200 the same thing. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah, and that's really 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.640 I mean, the way that a lot of robotics experts 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.680 see robots really taking off, at least in the near future, 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.120 is they'll be used to do jobs that are either 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:32.240 too dirty, dull, or dangerous for humans. So jobs that 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:36.760 are incredibly repetitive and don't require much thought robots are 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:41.800 perfect for that. Also, robots don't sustain like repetitive injuries. 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.400 You know, you do have to continuously maintain them. You 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:47.200 can't just expect them to work forever. But they don't 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:50.920 get carbal tunnel syndrome for unless they fix themselves. Right, 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.600 and we we will get to that point eventually. And 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.160 dangerous Obviously, you don't want, you know, you would want 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.200 to be able to use a robot in a dangerous situation, 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.360 so that you're not putting human life at risk. Yeah, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:01.880 but with the goal of being able to use it 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:06.000 again and again and again. Right. So, but those robots 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.600 probably don't need to have a lot of human interactivity. 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.520 They're designed to do something that they're replacing a human, 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.400 not interacting with a human. But at the same time, 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.400 we are seeing this growing industry of robots that are 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.320 designed to be around us in our daily lives, either 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.680 as a telepresence style robot where the robot is standing 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.440 in as a surrogate for an actual person, and you 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.360 might have like an iPad or something like that as 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:35.400 a head where someone can skype in. And this is 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.960 always creepy whenever I see it done anywhere, but I 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:41.320 keep being told it's the way of the future. I 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:45.000 have never actually interacted directly with one in an official capacity, 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:46.840 but I've seen them at CS. Now I'm gonna I'm 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:48.880 gonna make a reference to something that I have nothing, 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:53.160 I have no personal interaction with. I believe my wife 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:56.240 was telling me about a movie recently called Her and 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:57.640 it was a man who fell in love with the 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:01.440 operating system and end of voice that that that that 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:04.160 operating system had. Now I can see something like that. 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.600 And let's say you get a refrigerator, and refrigerators have 0:16:06.720 --> 0:16:08.800 screens on the Now ours does hear it how stuff works? 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:10.640 And it's got a screen but doesn't talk to us, 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:12.800 But it does have a screen. You can interact, and 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:14.120 there's a lot of different things you can do with 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:18.480 that screen, including putting a wacky background image on it, 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.880 as someone did when they put in the UM, the 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:26.920 symbol for the evil organization from loss UM. I could 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:28.680 see if if it was talking to you every day, 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.520 and it had a likable voice, something that you felt 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.520 comfortable interacting with um that you know, I could see 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:37.320 somebody saying, why I'd be sad to get rid of 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.920 that refrigerator in in five years? Well, especially if you 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.080 would come home after a long day and your refrigerator says, Hi, 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.480 would you like a frosty adult beverage? I mean you 0:16:47.480 --> 0:16:50.480 know you're gonna have a bond with that machine immediately. Yeah. 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.280 So there's this whole discipline that's coming up, like how 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:57.280 do we how do we define these interactions? How do 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:00.520 we shape them? Uh? And a lot of it means 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.000 you have to do study on both sides. You have 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:05.000 to do a study on the robot side like what 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.639 works and what doesn't, and you actually have to study 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:12.840 human psychology how do humans respond to robots and at 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:16.160 what point do humans end up treating robots as if 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:20.119 they are alive, as if they're living creatures. And for 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.920 a while people were thinking, um, well, the robot's gonna 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:26.200 need to look like something biological already, Like it's gonna 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:28.200 have to be like a robot dog or a robot 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:31.160 you know, android type person, almost like a crash test 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.560 where it looks like a human but you can tell 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:35.520 it's not a real human. And it turns out that's 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:38.200 not necessarily true, because as we've already said, people have 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.600 been naming the room bas people get emotionally invested. It 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.159 turns out that we are if it looks animate, if 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.280 it appears to behave based upon its own decisions, whether 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.480 it's true or not. If it if it looks like 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.920 it's doing that, we start to kind of in our 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:57.760 minds give it these qualities. We'll be back with more 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:10.359 of the sad tale of Hitchbot after these messages. So 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.639 a lot of this really was studying that, like this 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.480 idea of the way people and machines are interacting and 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.920 how that is becoming defined over time and what we 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.720 might need to think about in that respect, and also 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:27.240 just kind of a you know, it's a happy story 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:34.400 about how people find joy in h a silly I mean, 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:36.639 really you get down to it, it's a silly robot, 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:41.000 not a bad robot. It's a silly robot. And and 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:46.639 the the experience of discovery and sharing that with other people. 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.280 That was a big part of this project too, and 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:51.760 it was really successful for three out of the four 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:56.399 big things that it did. The one that wasn't so 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.400 successful and was the United States. So um, really quickly, 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.359 before we get into the US stuff, I was going 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.440 to talk about some of the folks who designed and 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.880 came up with this idea. Uh. The two leads who 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.960 first came up with the concept for Hitchbot. We're David 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:19.560 Harris Smith and Franca Zeller And I probably am mispronouncing 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:24.439 Mrs Ellera Traca Zella. It's a name that I am. 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:27.399 I was not familiar with, totally new for me. And 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.600 they're out of port Credit, Ontario. Yes, and uh. Smith 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:34.840 is assistant professor at McMaster University in the Department of 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:39.600 Communication Studies. Zeller is an assistant professor in the School 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:44.080 of Professional Communication at Ryerson University Communications professors. Now, this 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:48.440 makes perfect sense because they're they're fishing for the way 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.040 people interact with this. They want to find out exactly 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:55.719 how people respond to this, how how in response to them. Uh, 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:59.520 this interaction is really really interesting for these people and 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.000 particul I'm sure right. And Zeller she got her PhD. 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.640 Her thesis was on human robot interaction, is it then? Yeah, 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:09.680 And they were joined by a lot of other people. 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.240 I've just got a couple of names I'll mention, but 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:14.640 the team itself is quite large. You can actually read 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:17.240 up on all of them on the website. It's funny 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.800 because the way the website is written, it's written from 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:24.960 Hitchbot's perspective. So hitch it's hitchbot saying, Oh, this is 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:26.879 the person who helped me learn how to talk and 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:28.919 it's very cute. This is the person that takes care 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:31.560 of my electronics. Yes, on a daily basis. I think 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:33.960 they're about fourteen or fifteen people on that team. It's 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.159 it's a big team. Is a large team, not just 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.960 the two two leads here, right, So you've got people 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:43.200 like a colin or a gadget who is a developer hitchbot, 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.879 and he's also a McMaster University student. He helped design 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.040 and test hitchbot to make sure it would be able 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:53.840 to withstand the various environments that it would encounter. Keep 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:55.840 in mind, this was summer in Canada, so it wasn't 0:20:55.840 --> 0:20:59.880 going to have to deal with a Canadian winter than summer. Yeah, 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.840 it's a little bit different from the Atlanta summers. Slightly 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:09.720 slightly less warm and humid, about sixty degrees cooler fahrenheit. 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.080 That is, um, they're not Celsius. That would be pretty incredible. 0:21:13.440 --> 0:21:15.720 Uh So, then you had Davin Bigelow, who was an 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.399 undergraduate student at McMaster who worked on the conversational skills 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.359 of this robot. Karen Veal birth Fish, who was another 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:27.840 person who worked on Hitchbot's language skills, Dominic kal Kinn, 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.080 whose undergraduate student at McMaster whose job was to monitor 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.040 Hitchbot's status and make sure the robot was okay. So again, 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.240 the robot was fitted with GPS and three G capability 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:41.280 to essentially report back home saying here's where I'm at, 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:43.560 being given time in every twenty minutes, he's getting a 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:45.960 photograph sent from this robot to him to kind of 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.639 update status where he is right now. Yeah, and then uh, 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.359 there was the big brother robot to Hitchbot, culture Bot 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:58.000 k U L t u are. But yeah, this was 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:01.639 this was a robot that preceded hitchpot. This was a 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:06.960 different human robot interaction experiment. Culture Bod's job was to 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:12.680