Counterpoint: what if HitchBOT was the start of machine consciousness and now our minds will be condemned to mind-torture jail forever. Perhaps it is safer to start a new religion that worships HitchBOT.
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2025
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I have some stale notes on the AI Hacking chapters of Schneier's "A Hacker's Mind", and in one of those chapters he theorizes how AI might hack human emotions. He brings humanoid robots with cute faces as an example.
You know, I think I have an idea how a social countermeasure to that might look like.
This writer seems to be missing the point. The point was not what HitchBOT was. By creating HitchBOT, its makers invited the world to play pretend with them: to pretend (for entertainment purposes!) that HitchBOT was a whimsical hitchhiker in need of aid, and to collectively see how far the participants in this game could get it. Destroying HitchBOT selfishly ended the game for everyone else.
This commenter seems to be missing the point about the point.
If Hillary were president HitchBot would still be alive
E: followup, from wikipedia:
Smith and Zeller recreated their invention as hitchBOT 2.0 in 2019. The robot was sent to Paris, France, where it was touring about and appearing in a play, Killing Robots, by Linda Blanchet. That tour was put on hold indefinitely due to COVID-19.
As a metaphor for liberal fantasy and optimism, hitchbot was doomed to die, one way or another.
Providing a cathartic release for some pissed-off Eagles fan is the closest it has ever come to usefulness.
They should have covered hitchbot in grease.
The grease just encourages them to try harder
go birds
🦅
What Canadian hockey teams are getting the shit beat out of them by our teams? Toronto is tearing it up rn. So is Winnipeg.